Untitled
by Evil's Muse
Summary: I am Untitled, having been stripped of any identity I could call my own Ages ago. I have travelled across Time and Space to find the Brother, for in another World, in another Time, a demon is lurking
1. The Arrival

**Chapter 1** - The Arrival

**Disclaimer :** Any thing related to any book of the _Rhapsody_ series is clearly not mine, as it belongs to Ms. Elizabeth Hayden. This applies to all future chapters.

The Arrival

This was not where she was supposed to land. At least, she didn't think it was. According to Phyla, the machine was to take her directly to the Firbolg king's throne room, and this was most certainly not it.

The woman surveyed the land around her. She was standing on a pathway, recently used she noticed, carved in a winding course into a rugged mountainside. All around her rose more jagged, teeth-like crags. The wind whipped at her cloak; threatening to rip her hood from her head and tear the scarf around her mouth from her face. As she shifted her weight, her toe nudged a few pebbles over the path's edge. The rocks bounced off the mountain's side as they careened downward, but the woman did not hear them reach the bottom. She imagined it would be a breathtaking view in the daylight.

Muffled voices came to her ear on the wind, along with a more distant, low, hammering sound. The woman glanced behind her as the gruntings came closer. Through the darkness she thought she could see the shadows of several stocky, muscular men of some kind. _Guards?_ thought the woman. The shadows drew nearer, then halted suddenly. One of them pointed a short, fat finger in her direction, and immediately the four phantoms began running toward her. _Guards_, she determined to herself as she took off along the path.

Under normal circumstances, the woman would have lost the pursuing creatures in a heartbeat, but seeing as she was traversing a narrow mountain path, in the dark, with absolutely no idea where she was going, it took all of her cunning to just keep from hurling over the edge.

She ran blindly through the night, hoping not to fall off the path or run into any other guards standing watch. That would cause her more delay, and that would not do. _Unless,_ she thought, _I was being pursued by the Bolg King's guards, in which case they would bring me straight to him. _She slowed at the thought, and the guards came into view once again. _But best not to take chances,_ she told herself, increasing her pace.

Her pursuers began shouting, the woman glanced over her shoulder. They were calling to someone. She returned her eyes to what lay ahead and saw that she was fast approaching the entrance to a tunnel leading inside the mountain. An entrance with four more armed guards.

The woman did not hesitate, she was never very good at stopping anyway. Instead, as she came upon the waiting sentinels she ducked her head and fell into a somersault. The sentries crashed into one another in a dazed heap as the woman rolled back onto to her feet and continued into the tunnel.

There was some light on the other side of the entrance; dim torches burned quietly in their sconces along the hallway._ Fire..._a small voice whispered in the back of her mind. Her fingers twitched.

A flame from one of the torches suddenly leapt into a furious fire and streaked across the tunnel, creating a temporary roadblock for the woman's hunters. The ones closest to the flame cried out in out in pain from the heat and sudden light. The woman veered around a corner.

Solid wooden doors lined both sides of the new stone corridor. _Must hide,_ the voice in her head said. She spotted a door that had been left slightly ajar and headed toward it.

Achmed stared anxiously up at the ceiling, the silk sheets of his bed providing no comfort. His skin prickled. He shot up in bed. Something was wrong.

He could feel the static in the air, heard the sentries' shouts. He grabbed his self-made cwellan and opened his door a crack.

A hooded and cloaked figure was barreling down the tunnel at a reckless pace. The figure looked up. Achmed narrowed his eyes, but could not see into the shadow of its hood. The figure suddenly shifted its course and headed straight for Achmed's bedchamber.

The Firbolg King cursed and ducked back into a corner of his room. He was visibly seething at the fact that an intruder had managed to infiltrate his mountainous city. It made him even more furious that he had had no warning, and that he had no idea of the intruder's identity.

The door burst open and the cloaked figure dashed inside, shutting the door quickly behind him. Achmed sighted his cwellan at the trespasser's head.

The woman hurried inside the room and shut the door swiftly behind her. She braced herself against the cool wood, pressing her ear close to its surface. When she had heard all eight sets of footsteps pass by she sighed, and turned around.

Indescribable pain tore through her head; beginning behind her left eye and searing a path into her skull and then her down to her very core. She let out a strangled cry as her hands flew to her eye. She numbly felt the edge of a thin metal disk, and cursed again.

She lifted her head up to face her assailant: a tall, thin man in black, as shadow-like as herself.

"Dam you," she muttered through gritted teeth.

Achmed was as close to shocked as he'd ever been when the invader didn't immediately drop dead when the three razor sharp disks embedded themselves into his head. He cried out and grabbed at his eye with both hands. A string of curses flew out of his mouth that the Bolg lord, despite not being able to understand the words, thought rivaled the Sergeant Major even on his best day.

As the intruder swore at him, Achmed noticed the inflection in his voice, and realized that the 'he' was a 'she.'

The woman clenched her jaw and gritted her teeth as she fought back the searing pain. When she had conquered the worst of it, she straightened and looked directly at her attacker.

Achmed met the woman's gaze, well, what was left of it, squarely. A whisper-thin metal disk protruded from her left eye. The rest of her face was streaked with mud and blood.

"Well, what do you think?" she asked in a muffled, far-away rasp. "The latest craze among the Undead?"


	2. The Meeting

**Disclaimer:** As stated previously, Rhapsody characters and places and such are not mine.

**A/N: **Thank you so much for the reviews! You know that little Fan fiction Review Alert in my Inbox always makes me happy.

Runnini: Yeah, that last line is one of my favorites. That character is always like that-black and dry. I know I'm bad at updating. It's 'cause I typically only have access to the Web once a week. My computer at home is an old laptop with Word Processor, that's it. Oh, and solitaire. Like your name, by the way!

Chris steel: Weird? Well, yeah. I get that a lot. :)

Anyway, here's Chapter two, at last!

**Chapter 2** - The Meeting

Achmed said nothing. He stood there, silent and pensive, until he had sorted out everything in his mind first. The woman stood silent as well, though wincing and blinking repeatedly in pain. Achmed never removed his hands from his cwellan.

"Please, by all means," the woman finally said, "shoot me. Through the heart, it will be more effective that way." The king did not appreciate the sarcasm in the woman's tone.

As Achmed remained silent, tears began to well up in her eyes, but still she did not succumb to the wound. Indeed, it appeared she was recovering. She let out an impatient huff. "Well," she breathed. "I suppose it is to be the hard, painful way, then? All right. Please excuse me for a moment."

The woman bent over at the waist, and to Achmed's amazement, and horror, she began to pry the thin metal disk out of her eye. She stuck her fingers into the tear made by the disks' razor-sharp edges and tugged, letting out numerous curses in numerous languages.

Blood spit out of her eye socket, and ran down her hands in little red rivers. The woman groaned in agony as the first disk came loose. The other two were no doubt imbedded farther into her head, possibly her brain, and Achmed scowled at the thought of how she was going to retrieve them. Yet, a small sense of morbid humor crept into his mind, as he thought of Grunthor, his giant, half bolg friend and Sergeant who constantly sang of such things as ripping out one's eyes.

The woman's fingers slipped deeper into the gore of the gash, and though it was enough to make anyone nauseous, Achmed never once looked away.

Once all three disks were laying in a bloody heap on his bedroom floor, the woman righted herself and eyed the pile before meeting the Bolg's gaze again.

"That was _fun_," she muttered, wiping her fingers on her cloak, "but I would ask you to kindly refrain from gracing me with that experience, again." Then to herself she added, "I am deformed enough as it is."

_Ironic, _Achmed thought, _many would say the same of me._

The woman cocked her head in order to eye the Firbolg king, whose hands had never left the trigger of his unusual weapon. "Would you mind lowering the disk-flinger?" she asked.

Achmed remained still as stone. He had every right to be suspicious of this intruder. He had assumed that all beings F'dor had been either 'cleansed,' as Rhapsody put it, or exterminated. He very well could have been wrong.

"Listen," the woman said in that distant rasp, as if she could read his mind, "I'm not in any way, shape or form related to that demon F'dor."

Achmed narrowed his eyes. The only thing visible of the woman's features were her eyes, which did have a red tint to them, but only because of her previous wound, everything else was kept hidden underneath a dark cloth, much like his own veils. Her left eye had swollen shut, and was growing larger and more purple by the moment.

"Can you sense the thing?" she continued. "Do you smell burning flesh?" There was a pause. "No, I didn't think so."

"What do you want?" Achmed demanded in a low, threatening sandpaper voice.

"It speaks!" the woman gasped in mock awe. Then settling into a more solemn expression, she said: "I've been sent to fetch you, Brother."

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Short and sweet. Hope it was worth waiting for!


	3. The Confession

**Disclaimer: **same as before, I do not own anything actually in the Rhapsody stories.

**A/N:** More reviews! Excellent! Incentive to write more.

Chris steel: Hehe, ew, yes. Be prepared for more in the future. :) Glad to hear you like the humor, for some reason people don't always understand my humor.

Dalamar Nightson: I like cliffies. Well, I like writing them. Hehe. Glad you're enjoying the story! Yes, I admit, digging out the disks was a little gross, but it just really fits the character (hint: there's more to come! :) )

The general comment I'm getting is that the woman's sense of humor is good, a little like Achmed's. Good to know. Any kind of feedback like that is really helpful. Thanks! This next chapter is pretty long, to make up for the last one. It's also my favorite chapter so far. Hope you enjoy it!!

**Chapter 3 - **The Confession

Grunthor went bounding to the Firbolg King's bedchambers as soon as he got word from the sentries. He was outraged and afraid. He was not worried only of Achmed, but also of the Earth Child, who lay sleeping at the end of a tunnel whose only access was from the king's room.

The giant, green-skinned Bolg hurled himself at Achmed's door, howling his guttural war-cry.

The room was dark, two shadows stood at opposite ends. Achmed, the slightly taller and thinner one stood deeper in the room, blocking the trunk that was the entrance to the Sleeping Child's place of rest.

Grunthor immediately seized the back of the intruder's neck, and lifted him up off the ground. Achmed seemed rooted in shock, and the giant at once became anxious. He whirled his captive 'round, so that the two were face to face, Grunthor's finely cleaned tusks almost brushing the prisoner's skin.

"You must be Grunthor," she said, in a harsh, muffled voice.

"Gimme one good reason why Oi shouldn't break yer neck," Grunthor growled.

"Would be a waste of effort," the hooded woman replied.

"Who sent you?" Achmed demanded. Grunthor turned the woman to be able to face the former assassin.

"I would tell you, but I hardly think his name would make much of a difference," the woman answered. "You know, I don't mind the rude silence, gestures, comments, or even the mistrust, but I would ask that you at least grant me the privilege to stand on my own two feet."

Grunthor only tightened his grip, but once he saw Achmed nod, he let go of the woman's cloak and let her drop to the floor.

_Most generous of you_, she thought to herself. "Shut up," she hissed aloud. Achmed and Grunthor exchanged looks.

The woman regained control over the nagging little voice in her head as Achmed questioned her identity and purpose, again.

"Could we, perhaps, move this discussion to a place with chairs?" she asked. "I promise that this is the last request I make before I answer any and every question you might have. Besides, I'm sure you two would feel much more comfortable with me not so close to the sleeping Earth Child."

The woman was sure they were beating themselves apart trying to think of how she knew all of these things; things no other living beings were suppose to know.

Eventually, with a little persuasion and strict rules, she got the two men to take her into the Cauldron, to the king's meeting room and place of business.

"Oh, and you might want to call your friend Rhapsody up here as well," the woman added as they left the bedroom. "This will involve her somewhat, too."

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The woman sat down in one of the chairs around the large gathering table and stiffened her posture as Achmed paced back and forth on the on the side of the table, and Grunthor took up a post close behind her.

"I will be the one to ask questions," the king stated flatly as he ceased his pacing. The woman remained perfectly still in her chair in agreement. "You will answer quickly and truthfully." He paused. "Who sent you?"

"Phyla."

"Who is Phyla?"

"A twittering old madman who spends his life tinkering with too many useless gadgets."

"And you take orders from this 'twittering old madman?'"

"No."

"No?"

"No."

"Then why are you here?"

"I have been sent."

"By Phyla?"

"Yes."

"The man you don't take orders from?"

"Yes."

"And yet you are here, as he instructed you?"

"Yes."

"Sir, if I may say somethin'?" Grunthor interjected. Achmed nodded. "Per'aps you should try a dif'rent approach, sir." The three were silent for a few moments as Achmed rethought his examination.

"Who are you?"

The woman blinked.

"Who are you?" Achmed repeated more forcefully.

The woman was quiet, and then: "I am Untitled," she said.

"I do not care for your 'title,' what is your name?" Achmed said in mounting frustration.

"I have no name."

"Then what can you do?"

"Do?"

"Yes."

"I do not understand. Rephrase the question."

"Do not play dumb with me, we made an agreement. I have no problem in letting Grunthor hack your head off and stick it on a pike to use as a target dummy," Achmed said angrily.

"I cannot answer if I do not understand the question," the woman answered calmly.

Achmed had the sudden feeling that he was back on that plain on the other side of the world, on the other side of Time. His face itched, the exposed nerve endings of his skin web burning.

"Perhaps I could talk to her," came a female voice from the other end of the room.

The woman in black turned her head and saw a short, slender woman with long, golden hair and intense green eyes enter. The woman immediately identified her as Rhapsody, the last member of the Three. A man came in right behind her, with clear, bright blue eyes and metallic copper hair. The woman assumed he must be Ashe, Rhapsody's husband, and only a useless body to take up space and another pair of ears unworthy to listen in on what she had to say, in her mind.

Achmed scowled. "Why is he here?" he wanted to know. The dark woman glanced at him. He didn't like Ashe much either, it appeared. Rhapsody ignored him and approached the cloaked woman.

"Remove your hood, please," she said in a light, musical voice. The woman did not comply. "How are we to trust you, as you ask, when you do not even trust to show us your face?" Rhapsody continued. "I do not even know how to address you. What is your name?"

"We've tried that already," Achmed quipped. "She doesn't have one." Rhapsody shot him a look.

"What is your name?" she repeated.

The woman glared at her from underneath her hood. "I am Untitled," she said, "having been stripped of any identity I could call my own a long time ago."

"Please explain," Rhapsody encouraged.

"It is not relevant," the woman insisted.

Rhapsody sighed. "I do not wish to make this difficult," she said. "Please, just tell us what it is you want, and if you want us to be able to trust you, please take down your hood."

"Bad idea," the woman replied. "I mean, if you think he's ugly," she gestured toward Achmed, and left the sentence hanging. She noticed the man named Ashe shudder slightly.

"Take down your hood," Rhapsody said one more time, but the tone in her voice was different. She was using that Naming thing Phyla had talked about. The woman shook her head. _Fools_, the voice in her head clucked. But the woman wrapped her fingers around a fold at the back of her head and pulled, at the same time tugging the cloth around the bottom half of her face down.

There was a collective intake of breath. Ashe looked away, the others' eyes remained locked upon her warped face; like carnival goers at the freak show, the scene before them both horrified and riveted them to the spot simultaneously.

The woman's dark brown hair fell lifeless and tangled in a heap around her shoulders, her skin was stretched and sallow. The right eye was sunken and rimmed in dark circles, while the left was caked in blood and swollen immensely in grotesque shades of green, brown and purple. A dark pink, almost red scar rimmed in raw skin jutted from her right eyebrow down to the corner of her mouth, where it caused her upper lip to curve into a gruesome sneer. Chunks of her face were missing at random points all over. Her face seemed made up entirely of scar tissue.

"To my credit, though," the woman said, "I did have two good eyes before your friend here shot me."

Rhapsody shot Achmed a venomous look. Achmed just shrugged.

"What happened?" Rhapsody inquired, her voice full of sorrow, and what the woman thought sounded like pity. The crude grin that the woman had had on her face faded quickly into a scowl.

"Many things that do not concern you," she said quickly, drawing her hood up again, though leaving the mouth cloth down. _At least they didn't scream_, she thought. _I'd rather them be afraid than feel sorry_, answered the other voice. The woman shook off the voices. "Enough," she said. The others remained quiet.

The woman let her hazy gaze roam across the faces of these strange people into whose lives she had been catapulted. They were virtually immortal beings, but they still could die, if they were killed outright. They would one day find rest, peace. How she envied them.

"I have been sent," she began, "through Time and Space to find the Three. Namely, the former Brother." She turned and fixed Achmed with her one functioning eye. "I was sent to bring him back with me to the other world in order to right an ancient wrong."

Both Rhapsody and Achmed spoke at the same time.

"Why Achmed?"

"What wrong?"

The woman, addressing the other woman, said "Because he is Dhracian, and within him is the ability to enthrall the ancient demons." She turned to Achmed. "A wrong that very well could be the undoing of your world." The Three, and Ashe, stared at her, unmoving. The woman sighed in agitation.

"All right, cut the bull...," she grumbled. "That was all part of this long, fancy spiel I was suppose to give, but frankly, I don't give a rat's a$s, so I'm going to give it to you as plain and simple as I can make it.

"This whack-job I am currently employed by stumbled upon a time/space travel device a few years back, and while fiddling around with it, accidentally sent himself into the Past of a different world, your world. I don't know the logistics of it, but somehow he found out that a similar ancient whack-job that lived more than fifteen hundred years ago, your time, here, found this same time travel gadget, and transported himself into the less distant Past of my world. Unfortunately, the idiot lost the thing, and so was trapped in a strange Time in a strange place.

"Well, that seemed like only a sad sob story at the time, until my nut-case employer discovered that the dimwit who teleported himself across worlds, was the host of some other-world demon, who after a while began to work the situation to his advantage. Again, I don't know much about the details, but the demon's plan seemed to be that in this other world, where his kind, and those that hunt him, are unknown, it would be easier to grow stronger. So once he finds the time-travel device, he'll be able to go back to his world-your world-here-and manipulate things. He'll be able to turn situations that thwarted him in his attempt to 'unleash the greater demon' to his advantage.

"In essence, you and your world are doomed if we don't get Achmed to help us kill the thing before it gets its festering hands on the time traveler."

The companions all sat in varying stages of shock and confusion. The woman knew the whole thing was crazy and way too complicated for normal people, but as deranged as it seemed, it was true.

"So, you're telling me that there is a F'dor, right now, living in another world, bidding its time to come back to...destroy us?" asked Ashe.

"Yes. For the most part."

"If you ask me, Oi'd say it's a load of crock," Grunthor mumbled.

"I thought the very same thing," the woman said, turning to the giant. "Until the Moron dragged me around all over Time and Space to prove it. I can still hardly believe I'm here now."

"You keep mentioning this moronic 'employer' of yours," Achmed interjected quietly. "How are we to believe you when you yourself are denouncing your source of information?"

"Forgive me," the woman answered. "I've been a bit biased. Just because _I_ think he is a tremendous dolt, doesn't mean that he is."

There was silence as the Three looked around at each other. The woman could see the strained look on all of their faces and let out another exasperated sigh.

"Look, all you need to know is there is a F'dor out there somewhere, and you must help me find it and kill it. Simple as that."

Rhapsody messaged her forehead in frustration. There was just too much to think about. They were all looking anxious, except Achmed, who appeared to be engrossed in pensive silence.

"You know, I really only need Achmed for this," the woman said, shifting her weight in her chair. "You two," she nodded at Rhapsody and Grunthor, "could stay and take care of matters here. We really won't be gone long."

"Oh, no," Grunthor said. "Just got ter travel across Time, find an ancient demon with an unknown 'ost, kill it, and then trek back across Time again to get 'ome. Yeah, real piece o' cake."

"I'm not trying to..." the woman began. "I'm serious, Sergeant. I could leave right now, be gone for some eighty years, and then come back only a second after I left. I can manipulate Time so I can go wherever I want, whenever I want." The others just stared at her. "Trust me! I know what I'm talking about, though it may not seem like it."

Achmed rested his fingertips on his lips as he thought. "Would you excuse us for a moment?" He rose from his chair and with his eyes instructed the others to follow suit.

"Sure!" the woman exclaimed. "There's no hurry." She leaned back in her chair, planted her booted feet on the table, and spread her arms out wide. "I've got all the Time in the world."


	4. The Decision

**Disclaimer: **same as before, I do not own anything actually in the Rhapsody stories.

**Chapter 4 - **The Decision

**A/N:** No, I haven't died! The computer did. Sorry for the delayed update. I'll try not to let it happen again.

Vcorrigan: Thanks. I know it's morbid. I don't do sentimental. As for the grammar errors, I deny nothing. I am awful at grammar.

Clayton: Hm, maybe Rhapsody will help Untitled with her name problem. We'll see.

Dalamar Nightson: Glad to here it. That last line is one of my favorites, along with the last line of chapter one.

Cerulean Asphodel: Nice name! Yeah, does Untitled sound familiar? I couldn't resist, I love that character, though she's undergone some slight changes.

Thanks for all the reviews! On to the story!

The Three stood together in silence for a moment. Grunthor spoke first.

"I say we cut 'er 'ead off, throw the body in the furnace, then tell anyone who asks she never got 'ere," he said.

"That's your answer for everything," Rhapsody chided. Grunthor shrugged.

"It works."

They lapsed back into silence.

"We have to decide something," Rhapsody said finally. "I don't like leaving Ashe out there alone."

Achmed scowled. "Ashe is a big boy now," he said, "I'm sure he can take care of himself."

The woman in black reclined in her chair, feet propped up on the table. Ashe sat uncomfortably still across from her. The dragon was nagging at him to let it examine this creature, but Ashe beat it back. Just the sight of her face was enough to induce vomiting, he didn't want to know what the details of her essence would make him do.

The woman's black pit of a face was pointed in his direction, and for once he was glad that a potential enemy was keeping their features hidden.

When was the last time someone had ever made him feel this nervous? Ashe wondered. His heart skipped a beat and his hand flew to the hilt of his sword when he heard the rustle of a dagger being drawn.

The woman was picking her fingernails with a knife. A very large, sharp knife, and small sparks seemed to jump off the blade as she did so.

Ashe looked toward the door Rhapsody had left through and anxiously willed his wife back into the room.

"Well, what do we know about her?" Rhapsody asked, trying to move the decision along.

"That she's insane," Achmed said.

"And ugly," Grunthor added.

It was Rhapsody's turn to scowl. "You just described yourselves," she said. Achmed and Grunthor exchanged looks, then shrugged.

"I suppose we don't really have a choice," Rhapsody sighed. "If there's a F'dor out there..." she trailed off.

"It could be luring us to it right now," Achmed finished.

"I sincerely doubt that the host of a demon would knowingly walk into the layer of a Dhracian, tell him that there is still a F'dor out there trying to destroy the world, and then proceed to ask for help in the spirit's murder," Rhapsody argued.

"Stranger things 'ave 'appened," Grunthor mumbled.

"We still can't trust her," Achmed insisted. "I wouldn't doubt that she's being paid to distract and somehow undermine me and Ylorc."

"I highly doubt that," Rhapsody huffed.

"Besides, Oi doubt any o' yer enemies are smart enough ter think of somethin' like that," said Grunthor. Achmed nodded in agreement.

She was back to staring at him again. He couldn't tell if she actually was looking at him, the hood kept her eyes in shadow, but he thought he could feel the unearthly woman's deathly stare upon him.

_He's a bit more antsy than I'd expected,_ the woman thought as she fixed her slowly returning gaze on the man with dragon ancestry._ How does that work, anyway?_ The voice asked. _Part man, part dragon? I thought dragons were large, lizard like creatures; unable to reproduce with humans?_

She told the voice to shut up. It refused.

_I mean, how is that physically possible? And just what does being part dragon entail? This makes no sense..._

She severed the voice's head. The babbling ceased, for the time being.

"I don't care, I still need proof," Achmed insisted. Following some unknown madwoman blindly across the earth without knowing whether or not what he was looking for actually existed, was not something on his to do list.

"Suppose that you had sufficient proof," Rhapsody said. "What then? Do we all go?"

"Oi'm goin' with Achmed," Grunthor said. "If there really is a F'dor out there, yer gonna need my 'elp."

"The two of you aren't leaving without me," Rhapsody said. "I'm going with you."

"We wouldn't 'ave it any other way, Duchess," Grunthor said as he smiled and patted the Namer on the back.

A/N: Okay, so that was a really crummy chapter, sorry. I've lost that Rhapsody vibe. I had everything planned out up 'til that point. Now I don't know what I'm doing. Any suggestions, comments, concerns or dilemmas, would be welcome.


	5. The Affidavit

**Disclaimer: **Rhapsody characters and events are not mine, seeing as I did not write them. You know what, that's the last one I'm writing-all chapters hereafter apply to the above stated disclaimer. Thank you.

**A/N:** Thanks for the reviews! I'm really sorry it's been so long. I had some technical difficulties. Heaven forbid I actually find a computer with both Word processor AND the internet! From now on, if I haven't posted in a while, check my profile for an update on what's going. That's where I'll probably post my inane rambling about computer problems. Or DVD problems! First, the VCR eats Chicago, bye-bye tape, bye-bye VCR, then the DVD player eats Shrek 2, bye-bye DVD player. Ugh, I swear, technology hates me.

Dalamar Nightson: Mystery, huh? Hm. Ashe bashing! Yes! I love it! I really liked Ashe in the first books, until they got married. After that he really bothered me. I have no idea why. Perhaps it's because I've become more Achmed-esque.

Anyway-here's the next chapter.

**Chapter 5 - **The Affidavit

The Three reentered the room, the dark woman slid her feet off the table and the chair landed back on the floor with a thud. Ashe let out a breath of air, stood, and went quickly over to Rhapsody's side.

The woman merely leaned forward in her chair, waiting for her answer. Not that it really mattered whether or not Achmed actually agreed to come with her. He would be going.

The Firbolg king stood there, staring down at her with his mismatched eyes peering through his veils; that inescapable stare.

"Prove it," he stated simply.

The nagging little voice in her head snorted. Yes, because she needed _more_ evidence that she was telling the truth. The fact that she knew just about every intimate detail about their lives wasn't good enough. She shook the thought off.

The woman rose from her chair, reached into her cloak, then seized Achmed by the arm. Before the Bolg lord had time to pull away, he felt himself being wrenched backward. All at once he found himself hurling through a swirling tunnel of misty wind. He was immediately lost to vertigo.

Rhapsody and Grunthor watched as the dark woman stood, then grabbed Achmed's arm forcefully. They heard her whisper something first, before their clothes were suddenly whipped around violently as a fierce wind racked the room. It seemed as though a small tornado had torn through the Cauldron.

Once it died away, Grunthor and Rhapsody's vision became clear again. They were rooted in shock, mouths agape. Achmed and the woman had disappeared.

"Hrekin."

Achmed was lost in a swirling gray vortex of mist and shadow. Thinking was impossible; his consciousness had been stripped away. It seemed that he would be lost forever to this endlessly spinning gray matter.

And then it stopped.

Achmed was pitched forward and fell to the ground in a heap. It took a few moments for his senses to return to him. Once the world had ceased its spinning he propped himself up on his hands and knees.

He was in a field, a plain, grass green and thick beneath his fingertips. The sky was dark and lavishly decorated with shining white stars, arrayed in a pattern that was most certainly not possible.

"Get up," ordered a deep, yet feminine voice from behind him.

Achmed tried to pull his legs underneath him to stand, but when he hesitated in doing so he felt a hand grab him by the robes at the back of his neck, and drag him to his feet almost effortlessly.

They were indeed standing in the middle of a vast plain, in the middle of an early summer night. The place seemed so alien, and yet strangely familiar. Achmed could not place it. Though the air around him had stopped spinning, his head had not.

There was a figure made of shadow standing beside him. "Remember this place?" asked the cold rasp. Achmed could not regain his usual sense of awareness. It bewildered him beyond belief that he could not control his swirling memories.

"It is the Wide Meadows," the rasp went on, "before its destruction some fifteen hundred years ago."

Wide Meadows? Of Serendair? The island that was lost?

"Perhaps this is not a strong enough memory for you," the voice said. His arm was clamped by strong thin fingers in death grip, as he felt himself launched back into that vortex of wind once again.

The journey did not as long as before, and neither did Achmed pitch forward upon their landing, instead the hand that gripped him like a vice kept him upright as his feet hit solid ground.

They were in a city, a small city, one that he didn't remember visiting before. Peasants brushed past him without so much as a glance; street urchins made their way through the alleys, and merchants called out advertising their latest treasure.

Suddenly he knew. The mist over his eyes lifted, his ears and sinuses cleared; he was bombarded with the intense, myriad rhythmic pounding of a million different heartbeats. He was back on Serendair.

"Bloody hrekin," Grunthor cursed as he looked, bewildered, around the room.

"What happened?" Ashe asked.

Rhapsody said nothing.

"That's it," Grunthor mumbled after he had looked out in the hall and found no trace of the Bolg king, "the next time Oi find a strange woman sneaking into Achmed's bedroom, Oi'm cuttin' 'er 'ead off right then and there."

This isn't possible, Achmed thought. He must have been drugged somehow, and now he was hallucinating.

It was just so real.

"Look familiar?" asked the dark woman from beside him. Achmed made no answer, he didn't trust that mutilated demi-human from the Void.

"Easton," she said, "fifteen hundred years ago."

Achmed refused to believe even what his senses were screaming at him. Two town guards rushed past him, vibrations on the wind assaulted his skin, his head swam with the multitudes of Cymarian heartbeats, but the ancient assassin could not accept the fact that he was back on an island that had been buried beneath the waves of the ocean a millennia ago.

"Don't believe me?" asked the raspy woman. "Look down that alley there," she pointed, "you might see something of interest."

Achmed numbly looked to where her bony finger was pointing and mentally balked at what he saw.

There, in the alley, stood a seven foot tall green monster with glistening tusks, a tall, thin man in black veils, and a short, stunning woman with green eyes and golden hair.

A voice, soft, with an air of authority, wafted deftly to Achmed's ear.

"..my brother, Achmed, the Snake..."

Achmed whirled on the woman in black. "What is this?" he demanded, his mismatched eyes blazing, the threat in his voice deadly.

The woman met his gaze evenly, the eye previously gouged out by three metal disks now merely red and swollen.

"It is you past, Brother Achmed," she answered. "You wanted proof. Here it is. Here is your affidavit. You can see it, taste it, hear it, sense it, all on your own. Still don't believe me? Perhaps another Time would better serve to convince you? Before all this, even?" She reached toward him.

Achmed drew back instantly, eyes locked on the dark woman.

_How?_ Achmed wondered. _How is this possible? _

"I can't tell you that," the woman said.

Achmed scrutinized her intensely. He wasn't aware that he had said anything out loud.

The woman let the Firbolg king alone with his thoughts for a moment. Despite the stench and the ruckus of the city, she was relatively at peace. While the trip through the vortex of Time would leave most people bereft of coherent thoughts for a short time, it served to quiet and soothe the normal tumultuous chattering of the little voices in the woman's head. The memories, the emotional and physical pains, were diminished, and for a brief time she could completely clear her mind.

The woman stretched out a hand, palm up, to the Bolg king. "Are you ready now?"


	6. The Departure

**Disclaimer: **please see previous chapter

**Chapter 6** - The Departure

Rhapsody and Grunthor, and to a lesser degree, Ashe, were beginning to feel the wave of panic wash over them, when there was a tremendous thud and a muffled curse from outside the main set of doors.

Grunthor was at the door in two strides. He grabbed hold of the handle and heaved the massive slab of wood open with a rush of wind.

Achmed had fallen to his knees and was in the process of righting himself when the door to the counseling room flew open.

Grunthor immediately interposed himself between his friend on the floor and the hideous woman in black standing behind him.

He stared down at her, tusks gleaming, eyes threatening. The woman didn't bother to meet his gaze.

"Gather whatever it is you need to kill a demonic spirit and meet me outside," she told the Firbolg king's back. She began to walk away, but stopped and added, "Bring your friends, if you must." Then she disappeared into the shadows.

Grunthor turned to find Rhapsody frantically trying to assure herself that Achmed had not been harmed.

"Are you all right? What happened?"

Achmed waved her away. "I'm fine," he growled, marching through the open door behind her.

He went in, snatched up his cwellan, and turned to his only two friends in the world. "I have to go," he said.

He found his way barred by the massive barrel chest of his seven foot, green fleshed Sergeant. Achmed heaved out an exasperated sigh.

"She wasn't lying," he said, reluctantly. "I was back...she took me to places that...that should be leagues under the sea right now," he stammered. He still hadn't recovered fully from the journey. "I saw things...I felt their heartbeats." He shook his head.

"If you say it's true, sir, Oi believe ya," Grunthor said.

"How long were we gone?" Achmed asked.

"Not five minutes," Rhapsody answered.

Achmed furrowed his brow. Surely their trip through the tunnel had taken longer than that? He shook his head again, in attempt to clear his mind of the fog that had gathered there.

The woman had been telling the truth. Despite that fact, Achmed could not bring himself to leave the Earth Child alone in the mountain. The woman had promised that no harm would come to the child, but the promise of a mutilated stranger from another world held no real assurance for him.

"Someone has to keep watch over the Earth Child," he said.

"I vote Rhapsody," Ashe chided from the other end of the room.

"Shut up, Ashe," Rhapsody snapped back.

The woman waited out on the dark mountain pass, letting the crisp high elevation air whip at her face; cooling the scalding heat of her skin.

The eye the Bolg king had shot with those three whisper thin metal disks was healing quickly, though not completely. She sighed. Phyla would ridicule her endlessly.

The dark woman let her hood fall down, and looked out over the crags of this other-worldly place. There was an emptiness inside her as she stood there, gazing out into the darkness. Perhaps when this was all over, she could come back here, to this secluded land, where there were no memories to be summoned unwanted but unstoppable, by the scent of a campfire or the sight of a canvas tent. There was nothing here to remind her of that other life; that life that had once been her own.

_It's your own fault,_ hissed the, until then, dormant little voice. _If you had taken him with you, instead of making him stay there, alone, in that death trap of a shack..._

"Shut up!" whispered the woman through clenched teeth. "I have no time for your incessant ramblings!" For once the voice obeyed.

Behind her, a throat cleared.

The woman whirled and found Achmed, the Bolg king standing there, with the giant Sergeant Major looming up beyond him, and the diminutive Lirin woman beside him.

The dark woman thrust her hood back up over her head. She took a step toward the three companions and seized the sinewy wrist of the Firbolg king. Achmed barely had time to grab hold of Rhapsody and Grunthor before the travelers were sent hurling through the swirling vortex of Time and Space.


	7. The Landing

**Chapter 7 - **The Landing

The woman, having traveled through Time on countless occasions, was ready for the jolt of the sudden stop. The ones from Serendair, however, were not.

When the four were finally spit out onto a dark, grassy patch of earth, the sullen woman landed squarely on her feet. Achmed fell to the ground in a heap, Grunthor went stumbling drunkenly into a tree, and Rhapsody, being so small, pitched forward and rolled head over heels until she came to a stop some fifteen feet away.

The woman surveyed their landing site carefully.

"Shit," she cursed angrily.

The others got to their feet and stumbled toward her groggily. As they recovered and cleared their heads, the woman inspected the time traveler device.

"Gar!" the woman growled, chucking the device at the ground furiously. When she saw the Bolg lord looking at her, then toward the little trinket on the ground, she went over, grumbling, picked the device up and deposited it back inside her cloak.

The woman found a good sized rock at the edge of the circular clearing of hardwood trees, and planted herself upon it. She didn't so much as bat an eye as one by one, her three charges went to their knees, wretched, and passed out.

When Achmed awoke he had a hard time remembering just what had happened before he blacked out. The sun now made its way into the small clearing, its early morning rays just enough to warm him under his robes, but not overheat.

His head swam as he sat up and looked around. Rhapsody and Grunthor were still unconscious, lying sprawled out on the ground a few feet away. Grunthor was snoring slightly.

Draped over a rock to Achmed's left was a large black cloak, along with a large black scarf made of a material similar to his own veils. In front of the rock was a circle of smaller rocks, put there for what looked like a fire ring.

There was rustling in the brush. Achmed stood quickly, ignoring the sudden dizziness. The dark woman then appeared out of the trees.

Her face was completely uncovered now, her muddied blonde brown hair tied up in a bun at the back of her head. She wore an almost typical traveler's clothes. They were worn and stained; threatening to tear in a few places. Her brown leather jerkin, as well as her rather large belt, contained numerous pockets and straps for weapons. In her left hand she carried four felled brush birds, and in her right a small, neat hunting bow.

The woman came to the large rock and slung her quiver and catch onto the ground. She propped the bow up beside the small boulder, sat down, and began prepping the birds for cooking.

"Sit down," she ordered without looking up, "or the nausea will come back, and with a vengeance."

Achmed did not sit down. Until he did feel the nausea, that is. He decided he hated that style of time travel as the horizon began to blur and the trees began to spin.

"So, this is it?" Achmed questioned as soon as his head cleared up. "I had expected something a little more…palatial."

The woman grunted. "Even if we had landed where we were suppose to, 'palatial' is not quite the term I would use to describe it."

"No castle, then, for the great 'gloating idiot?'" Achmed said, rather dryly.

The woman glanced at him, her face not so hideous when viewed from the side. "For all the 'genius' the man is, Phyla is not a rich man," she answered.

There was a moment of silence, before Achmed voiced his true question. "Since we did not 'land' where we were suppose to, where the _hrekin_ are we?"

The woman frowned, but did not answer right away.

"You're lucky," she finally said. "We only landed a hundred leagues or so off course. The damned thing just spontaneously decided to combust, and spew us out wherever."

It was Achmed's turn to scowl. "_Only_ a hundred leagues?"

The woman snapped her head around and glared at Achmed with her one functioning eye; her scarred and mutilated features, hardly worthy of the title 'face,' did nothing to hide her smoldering rage.

"Just be thankful you didn't land a hundred _years_ from now," she hissed. "Then you'd be doomed to wander this alien land for eternity with no hope of ever going back to your precious little mountain kingdom, because the only one able to fix the now useless time traveler would have been dead for over fifty years."

Achmed glowered at the woman. "I wasn't the one who broke the bloody thing…" he began.

"Oh shut up and pluck a pheasant," the woman growled, chucking a dead bird at him.

Once all four pheasants were prepped for roasting, the dark woman went about starting the fire. She gathered a hand full of small sticks for kindling, then a few larger ones, and a few even larger. She piled them all in a heap in the center of the fire pit, and then flicked a finger.

The flames immediately sprang to life.

Achmed wasn't completely surprised. After all, he had met many beings in his own world capable of elemental magic. Rhapsody being one of them; she too had the power of fire, though somehow he suspected the two women's abilities were slightly different. For one thing, he couldn't ever remember Rhapsody shooting fire directly from her fingertips. That was more of a F'dor thing. Achmed scowled.

Once the bids were skewered and toasting, Grunthor and Rhapsody began to come around. As they struggled to sit up and come to their senses, the hideous woman retrieved a small leather pouch from a pack the Bolg king did not remember her carrying.

She set it down just outside the fire.

Grunthor seemed to come to a little quicker than the small Lirin Rhapsody, probably because he smelled the food.

When the two had made their way over to the fire and were sitting down, a little more conscious, the woman took the four spitted brush birds out of the fire, and gave one to both Rhapsody and Achmed. She gave Grunthor two.

"What about you?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Already ate," she replied. _A month ago._

Grunthor shrugged and dug in.

As they ate, the woman pulled something out of the little leather pouch.

"Chocolate?" Achmed snorted incredulously.

"A special kind of chocolate," the woman said, breaking off a chunk and handing a piece to each.

"No, thank you," Achmed said contemptuously.

The woman thrust it at him. "Eat it," she ordered. "Unless you wish to remain groggy and ill for the next two weeks."

Achmed glared at her before snatching it begrudgingly. And to his great surprise, he immediately felt clearer as he swallowed a bite of the sweet.

Once the woman had forced every last shred of food into every one of their mouths, Achmed prepared to head out, to wherever it was they were suppose to be headed.

"Just where do you think you're going?" the dark woman asked him as he slung his cwellan over his shoulder.

"We've rested and we've eaten. Isn't packing up and leaving the next step?" he replied, his tone dripping with annoyed sarcasm.

"It would be," the woman answered, "if you hadn't just traveled through Space and across Time."

Achmed let out an exasperated huff.

"Go ahead!" the woman said, waving him off. "Try walking! The only chunk of my cheek that hasn't been marred by something says you don't make it past the tree line."

Achmed glowered at the incredibly irritating woman. She made his skin prickle in annoyance, and yet the others seemed to be perfectly content in obeying every word the foul, misbegotten b---h said.

In truth, both Rhapsody and Grunthor had passed out again, slumbering peacefully beside the fire, in the middle of the day.

Achmed reluctantly sat back down, his mood none the better.

Achmed couldn't recall just how or when he fell asleep, that fact elevating his irritation to a higher level, if that was possible.

It was evening now, the moon was out, along with a sky full of stars - in no pattern he recognized.

A faint breeze rustled the leaves on the trees, and suddenly the Bolg king caught the taste of water. He spat. He hated water.

There was muffled sort of splash, and Achmed instinctively stood up and aimed his cwellan. He could see nothing but trees. The dark woman no where in sight. The sound came again, and without lowering his weapon, Achmed crept into the brush toward it.

A short distance into the trees a good sized stream ran by. The moon cast a small shaft of light through the leaves, illuminating a spot on the water; making it dance and shine with the sparkling ripples. He could hear the woman muttering.

It was only thanks to the half-bolg's superior night vision that Achmed ever saw the woman, standing just outside the light's reach, in the middle of the stream. She seemed to be scrubbing mercilessly at something on her right hip.

She cursed as she stumbled into the sliver of moonlight. She wasn't completely naked, an undergarment much like the ones Rhapsody had designed, only cruder, covered her chest. Despite that fact, however, Achmed still saw more than he ever would want to.

The scars on the woman's face did not stop at her neckline; they continued all the way down her back and torso in long, raised pink skin. She had been through more than her fair share of beatings. Whip lashes crisscrossed her spine in a twisted game of tic-tac-toe. Here, at least, Achmed thought, was someone who understood pain. Who could take it just as well as dish it out.

The woman continued to fumble at her hip, all the while falling in and out of the moonlight.

When she paused for a moment facing him, Achmed noticed a particularly grotesque scar, one that didn't seem to have healed well, slicing across her abdomen. It was as if someone had once tried to rip her guts out. Literally.

Achmed wanted to vomit.

The woman's head suddenly shot up, and she was staring right at him. There was no time to react before the woman had left the water and reached the Bolg king. She grabbed Achmed's wrist and yanked him out of the trees into the moonlight upon the stream bed.

She had on a sopping pair of trousers, a thick upper undergarment, and a look of rage to rent the sky in two.

"My face not mutilated enough for you?" she hissed sadistically. "Needed to be convinced they were all real?" Her fingers were a vice on the Dhracian's wrist.

Achmed said nothing, but never let his gaze wander away from the woman's blazing eyes. Eyes that seemed to have the very fires of hell burning behind them.

"Well look, then!" she cried, the rasp in her voice even more evident now than ever before. "Feast your eyes on what is the manifestation of Pain and Torture." She let go of his hand and stepped back, palms spread wide.

"Knives, racks, chains…" she listed. "Arrows, branding, you name it, I've been through it!"

Achmed couldn't help but notice a fairly recent wound on the woman's right hip, the same place she had been clawing relentlessly at. The site was riddled in cuts and oozing blood. And before his very eyes, he saw the fresh wounds fade into pink scars, then those scars shrink into new, untainted skin. The only unmarred part of her whole body. Then black etchings began to appear; the silhouette of a man on a bucking horse.

The woman sneered repulsively. "Don't dare look away!" she warned as Achmed tried to tear his eyes from this stomach-wrenching sight. She trudged back up to him.

"Look!" she ordered, thrusting the soft part of her wrist toward his face. Ugly gashes riddled the skin over her veins. "Self-mutilation," she breathed, "failed attempts at suicide." She let her arm drop. "Though not for lack of trying."

The dark woman returned to the water, and said no more.

At dawn's first light, the dark woman crept back into the camp.

Rhapsody was dreaming fitfully when she felt something hard and painful digging into her side.

"Get up," came a harsh rasp from above her.

Rhapsody opened her eyes slowly. She had not been dreaming, after all. The dark woman with the twisted face was there, now kicking Grunthor in the gut to get him up, and they were all laying out in the middle of a small clearing in a patch of trees.

Achmed was there as well, his black veils drawn closely about his face, his mismatched eyes staring off into the trees.

Rhapsody struggled to her feet as the other woman shouldered her bow, and disappeared into the forest. Rhapsody stumbled numbly in after her, with Grunthor right behind, and then Achmed following.

The Lirin's vision swam before her, and it was all she could do to flounder on through the dizziness. Grunthor's senses weren't much better. Achmed had returned to his normal acute awareness the night before, his run-in with the untitled woman snapping him back to full sensibility. By midday, however, all three of the other world companions had regained their complete consciousness.

It was a shock, therefore, that they suddenly found themselves without a guide.


	8. The Gifts

**Chapter 8 - **The Gifts

Rhapsody blinked several times.

"Where'd the little bitch go?" Grunthor grumbled.

"What?" Achmed demanded, pushing his way around the giant Sergeant - Major.

"Oi coulda sworn she was there a minute ago," the giant mused, scratching his head.

Achmed surveyed the trees around them, and the path before and behind them. There was a thick, gnarled vine dangling down in the middle of the path about three feet in front of them. Below the vine there was a dip in the ground, a very large dip. Achmed approached the vine cautiously, brushing past a bewildered Rhapsody in the process.

Just as Achmed neared the edge, a hand suddenly shot up and clutched the vine in a deathlike grip; the veins strained against the translucent skin. Then the hand's companion joined it on the vine. And slowly, meticulously, the dark woman emerged from the hole in the ground. Tied around her waist was a thick horse-hair rope. Attached to the other end was a large wooden crate.

She climbed just high enough so the crate was even with the ground, then jumped. The woman landed solidly on her feet, and immediately began to walk forward, dragging the crate out the few feet it had dropped back into the hole.

Achmed reckoned the woman with the scarred up face to be a third to half of Grunthor's size, yet just as strong, if not more so.

When she had hauled the box clear of the hole, the woman untied the rope from around her waist, and tossed it off to the side. Achmed wasn't sure if Rhapsody's mind was still fogged up, or if she actually had enough sense to keep her mouth shut. Achmed reasoned the latter was the more likely.

The dark woman went over to the crate, barely breathing heavily, and pried open the lid. She then proceeded to pull out a small bow, accompanied with a quiver full of falcon feathered arrows; several flasks, and a various assortment of swords and daggers.

The woman tested the bow's string, made a few adjustments, then went over to Rhapsody.

"Oh," Rhapsody said in surprise.

"Ever use a bow and arrow?" the dark woman asked.

"No, not really," Rhapsody confessed.

"This is a bow," the woman said, handing Rhapsody the small bow. "This is an arrow," she said, handing her the quiver. "You'll be fine." The woman returned to the crate.

"Oh, but I…" Rhapsody stammered.

"Learn," the dark woman ordered. And that was the end of it.

After surveying the contents of the crate, the woman picked out a few simple, yet deadly daggers. She tested the sharpness of the blade of one particularly long, curved knife; a thin trail of blood appeared on her finger. Achmed was the only one who saw the blood disappear just as quickly back into the woman's fingertip. And when she handed him the weapons, the Bolg king accepted them without a word.

It took her longer to decide on Grunthor's gift. She repeatedly looked back at the green skinned giant, sizing him up and evaluating the already wide array of swords and such attached to his back like a porcupine's spikes. Eventually she settled on a long handled, double ended, two-handed sword. The black handle was inlaid with finely shaped emeralds, the blade itself was long and curved, pretty much unimpressive. What was unique about the weapon was its hilt, or rather its lack thereof. Instead, there was an obsidian spiked club, so its wielder could slash through an enemy's neck then crush another's skull all in one fluid motion.

She swiped it through the air a few times before laying it in Grunthor's outstretched palm. His eyes gleamed in delight, as they often did when presented with a new toy.

"Don't lose that," the woman warned.

The woman then returned one last time to the crate. She pulled out two similar short wooden spears, then fit them together to form one large, double-edged spear. She ran a hand almost lovingly down the polished dark wood, fingering the sharp spikes that protruded from one end. On each end, the wood tapered into a long, slender steel knife. If stood upright, the unusual weapon stood just over six feet tall. It was the dark woman's personal creation.

She slid the double ended spear into a hold on her back, then replaced the crate's lid. She pushed the box back to the hole, and lowered it down. After it had reached the bottom, the woman laid a pallet of dirt and sticks over the hole to hide it, surprisingly well.

The woman started off down the path without another word.

A/N: All right, another short, pointless chapter. Sorry. I tend to come up one of those every now and then. I've also had a lot going on lately, and my creative juices have been all but drained. So if I am slow at producing the next chapter of nonsense where nothing really happens, I apologize in advance.


	9. The Tree Men

**Chapter 9 - **The Tree Men

The dark woman led the three companions along the path for several days. She brought them food, water, and made campfires daily, all silently. They asked no questions, and she offered no answers. That was the way she preferred it.

One evening while the woman cleaned that night's meal in a small clearing in the trees, Grunthor took out the clubbed sword she had given him. He gripped it with both hands and looked it up and down. He swung it back and forth in the air, thrusting and hacking at imaginary enemies. The woman smirked underneath her hood.

"I call it the Black Widow," she said in her rasp of a voice.

"Is that so?" Grunthor replied.

The woman's smirk grew. "Yes," she said, very matter-of-factly.

"Would you be the widow, then?" he asked.

"Yes," the woman answered, the smirk still shining brightly, though unseen by the giant.

"Oi'm sorry to hear that, Miss," Grunthor said, bringing the blade to a halt.

"No need to be," the woman assured him. Grunthor said nothing. "It's one of my favorite weapons," the woman went on. "I designed it. It has a lot of sentimental value."

"Sentimental value?" Achmed asked skeptically

The woman turned toward the Bolg king, a mischievous glint in her eyes. "Yes," she replied. "I've bashed quite a few late husbands' heads in with it."

A small smile crept over the Sergeant-Major's face.

"The flame throwing and maimed flesh didn't tip any of them off?" Achmed inquired.

"I never needed to use fire," the woman answered, "and most of them never had the chance to see my maimed…flesh."

"How could they marry you without ever seeing your face? Unless you were a mail-order bride?" suggested the Bolg king.

"I never said they were _my_ husbands, now did I?" The woman smirked again, then picked up her bag and left. The others were forced to follow.

That night Untitled pushed the travelers onward. She had heard an unnatural rustle in the leaves at dusk, and did not trust to camp.

Two of the ones from the other world seemed to be bickering; the woman and the man in veils. The dark woman could hear the anger in Rhapsody's voice even through her attempts to remain calm and quiet.

A twig snapped.

"Ssh," the dark woman warned. "Beware the green-eyed monster."

"Yes, Rhapsody," Achmed whispered, "we don't want to attract attention."

"No," the dark woman corrected. "I mean be ware the green eyed monster, he's been following us since dark."

"What?" the bolg king hissed.

"Ssh," she ordered again.

The companions continued on through the darkness; four dark shadows among the trees, until dawn came, and the untitled woman stopped them. They were a few yards away from the entrance to a large clearing, with rolling hills of corn and wheat.

The dark woman crouched and examined the ground, then lifted her nose and sniffed the air. Carefully, she drew her thick steel blade.

"You reek of something rotten, as always, Morris," she called to the trees. Almost immediately, a lanky man of average height and green eyes dropped down from the boughs, along with several other steely men in dark colors.

"And you still look like a living victim of the small pox," the lanky man replied.

"Your wit surpasses only your width, Morris," the woman said dryly.

The tree men panned out to surround the four companions, who had all drawn their weapons during the brief interlude.

Achmed sighted his cwellan and in a matter of seconds had figured the most efficient way of eliminating the strange intruders.

"What do you want, Bottom Feeder?" the dark woman demanded.

"Tisk, tisk," the man clucked. "After all the good times we've had, that's the best you can come up with?"

"I have several other words for you, Morris, none of which would be flattering in front of your companions, or mine," the woman answered.

The man named Morris shifted his stance to peer around the woman to inspect her followers. Achmed met his gaze directly, unsettling the lanky man. The bolg king was rather uncomfortable himself, for he found himself facing potential danger, and not being able to understand half of the conversation. While anything the woman said, the half-bolg understood, any and all words from the tree man's mouth were foreign.

"Who would these strangers be, then?" Morris asked. "Friends of yours?" he sneered. The woman glared at him. "Perhaps they're more experiments of that master of yours," he suggested.

The tip of the woman's sword was at the man's throat in a flash.

"What are you going to do, Deathshadow? Kill me?" the man jeered. The woman pressed the blade closer.

"You're not worth getting my sword dirty," the woman whispered. She re-sheathed her sword, and just as the man relaxed, she whipped out her double-ended spear and knocked him to the ground.

"Run," she ordered the others. They complied only when they saw more men dropping from the trees, and Untitled herself sprint out of the forest into the fields.

"Is it him?" the woman asked Achmed. He glanced at her oddly. "Is it him?" she hissed. "Did you feel the F'dor?" Achmed blinked, then shook his head. "Damn," the dark woman cursed. "I could've killed him then."

_You could still go back_, she thought. _Fling a fireball and be done with him._ It was beginning to sound like a good idea. _No,_ the little voice in her head said. _You could get the others killed._ So the woman turned her back on the urge to roast the sucker, and ran faster over the open fields.

Once they crested a small knoll, the woman had the others duck down low in the wheat. Rhapsody began to chant her little Naming trick.

"Hush," the dark woman ordered. "Your hocus pocus won't work here."

Untitled then stood up and thrust her hand out. A wall of flames immediately sprang up in front of their oncoming pursuers, stopping them dead in their tracks, literally for a few. She kept her eyes locked on the tree men. Each time they tried to go around the wall, the woman had the flames spread, so that going forward was utterly impossible.

She had the firewall span almost the entire width of the field. When she was satisfied that it would hold the men back for a while, she turned on her heel and ran straight for an old, beat up farmhouse in the distance.

The other three managed to keep up, to the woman's relief. She was not in the mood to be soft. The man Morris always put her in a foul mood.

When they reached the little gray house, the dark woman crashed through the front door without hesitation. Inside huddled a couple made old by toil and their three children, all under ten winters. The woman barely took notice of their tattered rags and dirty, hunger worn faces.

"Where do you keep your horses?" she demanded. The wife clung to her husband's sleeve as he lifted an arm and pointed out the back door.

"Please," the woman pleaded. "Please…"

Untitled ignored her, and only when the woman Rhapsody had not emerged from the house, did she go back. Untitled stormed in, grabbed the little Lirin by the collar, and dragged her out to the barn, kicking and whining the whole way.

The Namer went on about poverty and altruism the whole while the dark woman retrieved three horses. She gave Grunthor the reins to a large Belgian, and to Achmed the reins of a tall, sway-backed bay.

"She rides with you," the woman told him, vaulting onto her own gray mare.

Rhapsody was being difficult, so the dark woman ordered the bolg king onto the horse, then reached down and hauled Rhapsody up by the armpits.

"That way," the woman pointed.

Grunthor directed his mount out the open barn doors, Achmed and Rhapsody close behind, and as the untitled woman rode out, she dropped a small leather pouch onto the floor of the aisle. When the oldest farmer's daughter found it, watching the four ride away, she gasped, and dashed back into the house.

Untitled rode up behind Achmed's mount, and smacked the horse squarely across the rump. It whinnied, then jumped and galloped off, with Achmed and Rhapsody clinging on for dear life. Grunthor's horse, at hearing its stable mate squeal, took off after it, with Grunthor riding in a similar fashion. _Must not ride bareback much_, the dark woman mused as she spurred her horse on after the others.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

A/N: This may be the last chapter for a while. I've really got to start cracking down on studying for exams, and I've been doing some intensive work on two other stories that, frankly, have a much higher priority ranking. Both are original stories, if you're wondering. One's about the Adventures of Mr. Froggy (yes, he is a frog), and the other is Book of Black, the history of one of my frequently used characters (hint-the one in this story!). Anyway, that's the latest.


	10. The Hill House

**A/N:** Sorry for the delayed updating. Exams and all.

Jevvica: Yeah, I knew that, but I really wanted to add that line. Shame on me, but o well.

Achmed Blackclad: Ha! Yeah, I've noticed that. Achmed always seems to fall in love somehow. You don't have to worry though, even if I wanted to have a romance of some kind, the lack of a character capable to love and my lack of the ability to write sentimentally would kind of put a damper on things. Besides, do you think Achmed would really pick Untitled over Rhapsody? She's the female version of him! Almost.

Dalamar Nightson: Yes, Black is all mine...all from my cranium, which may or may not bea good thing. Where can you read it? No where yet, it's still chicken scratch in a little fat notebook. When it's typed, I may post it on fictionpress or something. I'll have to see. I'll let you know.

**Chapter 10** - Hill House

They pulled the horses up once they reached the safety of another forest. Rhapsody was ashen faced and looked about ready to puke. Grunthor fared little better. The untitled woman dismounted and began to lead her horse through the trees. The others scrambled after her in a hurry.

"Care to explain any of that?" Achmed growled as he regained his balance and took up his place behind the dark woman.

"No," she replied, not even bothering to look back.

The bolg king glowered. "I refuse to be led through this foreign wilderness without the knowledge…"

"I don't care," the woman retorted. "Now shut up."

The moon shone brilliantly in the clear midnight sky. Stars winked down at them through the leaves of the trees, and all was silent as the four companions stood at the edge of the forest. They were examining an old, cold gray stone castle decaying atop one open, lonely hill.

"Wait here," the woman whispered. She crept out into the clearing, jumping from shadow to shadow, until she disappeared around the front of the run down mansion.

"I have no idea what is happening," Rhapsody sighed. Nothing was making sense. They just did what the scarred woman said and left it at that. The others felt the same way, though remained silent as they waited patiently for the dark woman's return.

All was silent for a while, and Achmed was starting to lose his patience, when there came the distinct sounds of a scuffle and rushed footsteps from within the mansion. There was a shout; the sounds grew louder. Suddenly the back double glass doors burst open, and the dark woman came rushing out onto the terrace. The grand deck was supported by several large beams, over a walk-in lower level, and it was a fair sized drop to the bottom. The dark woman kept running.

Achmed watched her shadow leap off the edge and go sailing through the air. She hit the ground without ever breaking stride. Out of the doors behind her then came a small group of men. Two in sparse metal armor, and two garbed in the same woodsmen's attire as the tree men. They saw the woman headed for the trees (away from the Cymarians), and scrambled down from the terrace after her. Untitled disappeared into the shadows of the trees, her pursuers not too far behind, and then all was silent.

Rhapsody was beginning to worry that their guide had been captured or killed, when one of the shadows suddenly came to life and passed right between her and Achmed.

"Come," she hissed, cloak whipping around her like an angry shadow. Achmed stepped in behind her, Grunthor right there with him, and Rhapsody an uneasy step behind.

The woman led them around to the front entrance, illuminated by pale moonbeams to seem eerie and magnificent all at once. She heaved the large wooden doors open and ushered them inside. Once the doors were closed again they were lost in total darkness; both Achmed and Untitled melting away into nothingness. There was a spark, and a small flame appeared before the marred woman, casting a demonic orange glow upon her already mangled face.

"This way," she rasped.

The Three followed the small orange light through the otherwise lightless maze; entranced by its mystic glow amidst the darkness. The floor was hard and dusty, but relatively even. The light bobbed forward, up a flight of stairs, then another, and then it stopped. There was a rush of wind, and suddenly a hundred dripping candles were lit and flickering in their tarnished silver holders.

Achmed blinked once as his eyes adjusted to the sudden increase of light. They were in an average, rectangular room; a round wooden table in the center, with scattered and broken chairs all about, and a dozen eye-high candelabras. A few broken windows were covered with dark, musty drapes; only a few dirt-stained pains left visible. A podium of some sort, or a glass case on a stand, stood alone in the far corner of the room, hidden in the shadows. If not for his superior night vision, the Bolg king never would have seen it.

"What is this place?" Rhapsody whispered.

There was a loud thump from above and the sound of something rolling across the floor.

"Those Changeling mutts are here," the dark woman growled as something came crashing down behind the door in the right side of the room. There were a few muttered curses and a brief argument before the door swung open and nine young men and women clambered into the room.

The dark woman surveyed the blonde humans. "Where's the Skank?" she demanded.

"Uh…" stammered the tall, least-blonde girl with brown eyes. "She's…working." The dark woman shook her head.

"Who are they?" squeaked the youngest blonde girl, staring wide-eyed at Achmed, Grunthor and Rhapsody, who were all rooted to the spot with absolutely no idea who or what the newcomers were or saying.

The young woman bounced over to the three Sindarians and eyed them intently. "She's pretty," she commented, and then frowned, "too pretty. It's unnatural. Yet…" she trailed off. The girl then moved over to the Sergeant-Major. "Oooh, are those real?" she awed, reaching up to touch Grunthor's tusks.

"Get down, Harlot!" the dark woman snapped.

"What?" the blonde girl said, dropping her hand and looking at Untitled innocently. Then she caught a glimpse of Achmed and perked up. "Hellooo…" she said, smiling. The girl liked tall, dark and mysterious men, and unfortunately for Achmed, he happened to fit that description perfectly there in the dim light. The girl sidled up to the Bolg lord and batted her eyelashes. "I'm Harlot." Achmed didn't understand a word coming out of the tall blonde woman's mouth, but her being so close made him extremely uncomfortable.

"You get more like your great-great grandmother every day," the dark woman grumbled, pulling the girl away from the Bolg king.

"Hey!" she protested.

"Give the woman back whatever it is you stole," Untitled ordered.

"I didn't steal anything!" the girl exclaimed, put out.

"Liar."

"I didn't!" Untitled glared at her. "Fine," she huffed, pulling something out of her dark red cloak and handing it to Rhapsody.

"And the green man," Untitled said.

"Uh!" whined the woman.

"Now."

The blonde one pouted and handed Grunthor back a button. She retreated back to the ranks of her brothers, sisters, cousins…kin, and grumbled.

"Stay away from that one," the dark woman told the other world ones. "She'll rob you blind within the bat of an eye. And she's not limited to coins or jewels," she added.

Just then the door that Untitled had led the Sindarians through squeaked open, and another tall, blonde woman in….red leather…walked in. Her hair fell long and straight down past her shoulders, and her blue eyes sparkled in the firelight. She looked much like the others, only a tad older. She walked over to Untitled, but kept an eye on the Bolg king the whole way.

"Assassin," the no name woman whispered. The blonde one immediately looked away and tried to pretend that she hadn't been staring. There was a moment of silence before Rhapsody finally spoke up.

"Who are these people?" she asked as politely as she could.

The dark woman sighed. "Let's see if I can get this right." She cleared her throat and proceeded to name each of the ten men and women, pointing to every one as she went. "Idiot. Imbecile. Fool. Moron," she said, "Buffoon. Cretin. Half-wit. Harlot. Skank. Scoundrel."

Rhapsody blinked. "And by what do I address them?" she asked. Untitled just looked at her.

"Idiot, Imbecile, Fool, Moron, Buffoon, Cretin, Half-wit, Harlot, Skank, Scoundrel," she repeated.

"Those certainly aren't their names!" Rhapsody exclaimed.

"It's what they are," Untitled replied. "You, the Namer that you are, should see the logic in that."

Rhapsody looked indignant and about to go off like a volcano.

"Before you go off on yet another royal rant," Untitled said, "that is what I call them and they have no problem with it. Names in their traditional sense mean nothing. They don't make you who you are. You are what you are, and then you fit a title to that."

Rhapsody was irked beyond belief. This woman from the Void had just berated her entire essence, _her_ identity, and she had the gall to go about calling herself 'Untitled?'

"Then how is it you have no name?" the small Lirin woman demanded.

The dark woman's eyes flared in the darkness. "I have no reason to discuss that with _you_, Singer," she hissed with such malice that Rhapsody was momentarily taken aback. Then the woman with no name stalked out of the room in a flurry of black cloth.

The dark woman rifled through the dust filled cupboards of the former kitchen, pushing aside old broken dishes and insect-riddled cobwebs. There were a few empty boxes scattered here and there, thrown off by the food vacuums that were her unwanted god-children.

"Rutting black holes," she mumbled. "Finally!" she breathed, locating the last two round white tablets inside a small tin. She cast off the lid, threw the tin across the counter, and knocked back the pills. The dark woman sighed and gripped the edge of the tabletop, anticipating its tranquilizing effects. She was aware of someone behind her.

"Unless you have been shot, stabbed, impaled, or otherwise mortally wounded," she growled, "go away."

There was silence, yet the presence was still there, and her anxieties had not abated.

"Nothing," she muttered. "Dammit."


	11. The Mustering

**Achmed Blackclad - **Glad you like it! And yes, any review is a good review, so review away! We anti-romanticists gotta stick together, you know. Hehe. Hope you enjoy the next chapter as the angst is mounting…:)

**Chapter 11 - **The Mustering

The man named Morris finally had to send for a water mage in order to put out the flames the demon wench had kindled. He cursed the foul fire as he cursed himself for letting her escape yet again. It had become a sort of game, this chasing after one another, trying to kill each other, but never succeeding. The woman had long ago given up hunting for him, confident that she would be able to defeat him when he found her. That's what made the lanky man so angry. She was playing with him.

One on one, he secretly knew he'd never be able to kill the fire-wielding woman of the shadows. She was far too clever and unnaturally strong. That's why he would need men, an army, to storm her stronghold, corner her with no possible way to escape, and drive the blade of his ancestors through her black heart. Only then could she actually die.

It was a story told for many generations among the Morris line, beginning with an ancient uncle, whom the evil woman had murdered in cold blood on their wedding night. The man's brother, Morris's so-many-greats grandfather did not take well to the news, and vowed to have revenge upon the woman. She had killed him too. So his son took up his sword and went after her, to avenge his father's death. And so it continued, generation after generation, this relentless hunting of the scarred up woman. The story had been a bit warped from the actual truth, but the meaning of the story had remained the same. Kill the dark woman and have justice for all of the poor souls who had died at her hands.

"The Mage is here, sir," one of Morris's men called, bringing him out of his reverie.

"Good," Morris replied. "Bring him."

The fool wasn't leaving, so the dark woman cast a glance under her arm behind her. A tall dark shadow with two mismatched eyes glared at her from behind starched black veils. The woman sighed in exasperation and hung her head.

"What do you want, Snake Man?" she demanded.

"Answers," he replied.

"Answers to what?" the woman asked, turning around.

"My questions."

"Of course," she mumbled. The dark woman took a deep breath. "You've got sixty seconds," she said. "Go."

"I am not playing games with you," he growled, irritation making his voice even more like sandpaper.

"Who said I was playing games?" the woman demanded. "Ask your questions, before I change my mind."

The two dark figures glared at one another, eyes ablaze, tempers short.

"I'm here to find and kill the stray F'dor," Achmed growled. "That's it. Once I've done that, I return to Ylorc."

"No," the woman replied sarcastically, "I was going to keep you here as my own personal love slave."

The corner of Achmed's lip curled. "Where are we and why are we here?" he asked, struggling to keep his anger in check.

"An old abandoned mansion," the woman replied. "Formerly a king's vacation home, a few hundred years ago, now it is one of my caches. We're here because it's generally safe, it used to have food, and it's a roof. We won't be here long," she assured him. "I'm just as anxious to get this over with as you are."

"Who are those other humans?" Achmed asked.

The woman massaged her forehead before she spoke. "I was unfortunate enough in earlier years," she said, "to come across a rather dim-witted half-witch Shapeshifter, who thought it would be a good idea to bless her descendants with the innate ability to find me whenever they're in trouble. For some reason she thought cursing me with her idiotic grandchildren as god-children was actually a gift." She paused. "They're shape-shifting blonde fools who follow me around," she said.

"Why is it that I can understand you when you talk to them, yet I can't understand them when they talk, even though they understood you?"

"I took a pill that enables you to understand me, without me actually learning your language," the woman replied. "I can't explain it any better than that."

Achmed nodded slightly. "Who was that man in the forest?" he asked.

The dark woman's eyes raged. "A thorn in my side," she snarled.

"Why was he following us?"

"He's been trying to kill me for years," the woman replied. "As his father and his father before him, and so on, all did."

"And so on?" Achmed prepped.

"Seventy-five generations, fifteen hundred years, somewhere around there," the woman answered.

"You are an immortal?" the bolg lord asked in confirmation.

"Unfortunately," the woman muttered. _Nosy little rat_, the voice in her head hissed. _Tell him nothing more!_

After the mage had extinguished the blaze, Morris instructed his men to head for the nearest town. The young, sandy-haired water wizard mounted his mule, and road with the tree men to the town, where Morris collected as many able-bodied men as could be found.

"This demon, brought here by Satan himself from the very fires of hell," called Morris out to the throng of villagers, "has preyed upon the young and the innocent, the old and the weak, the sick and the poor, for far too long. Wherever there is tragedy, there is this Deathshadow. We will stand it no more!" The crowd shouted its agreement. "It hides in the abandoned castle," Morris went on, "plotting out ways to further destroy our lives, and countless other villages such as this!"

The man went on about demons and revenge, fire and brimstone, for a good while; revving up the disgruntled villagers so they would march under his command and not question his authority. And just as the sun began to set, Morris led his little contingent off into the trees, preparing to finally destroy the fire-woman once and for all.

A/N: Excited? I am! Just wait you wait…


	12. The Attack

**Chapter 12 - **The Attack

Achmed and the dark woman stood there in the darkness, both sorting out the other in their keen, methodical minds. The woman regretted having disclosed so much information, but she kept reminding the nagging little voice that it was necessary.

Suddenly one of the blonde brats, the boy named Fool, burst into the dingy kitchen, panting and wheezing.

"What do you want, Fool?" the dark woman demanded.

The young man huffed a few more times trying to catch his breath. "Angry…villagers," he puffed.

The dark woman sprang into action and went charging down the hall, up to the room where Rhapsody and Grunthor were staring out the broken window. Achmed followed, a shadow's shadow.

She pushed her way between the other two and cursed. A rather large mob of angry villagers carrying pitchforks and torches was making its way up the hill.

"Morris," she growled.

They were chanting and yelling, like the witch hunts of old, and acting ridiculous in the dark woman's eye. _Idiots,_ the voice muttered. _After fifteen hundred years they still think they can kill me._

She elbowed the smaller woman aside so she could get a better angle. Then with a few directive twitches of her fingers, she had snuffed out all of the villagers' torches and created a ring of fire around the old mansion.

"Idiot! Imbecile!" she called. "Get down here, now!"

"What's going on?" Rhapsody asked. The dark woman ignored her.

"Where are those nitwits?" she grumbled.

"What's happening?" Rhapsody demanded.

Untitled glared at her. "Is the glass too dirty or are you really that thick?" she asked. Rhapsody opened her mouth to speak, but then decided not to dignify that remark with a response. "My friend Morris has come for a little get-together," the dark woman went on, tilting her head in its black hood tauntingly. "You idiot twins, what the hell are you doing?" she yelled suddenly.

Two bodies then tumbled down the stairs and into the room they'd just left minutes ago. The two brown haired young men lined up next to each other in front of the dark woman like a pair of officers receiving orders from their general.

"Uh, Black…" mumbled the boy Fool, indicating the still approaching angry mob.

"What?" the dark woman snapped as she whirled around. A patch of her fire ring had been extinguished, and a few of the cockroaches were beginning to make their way through. The dark woman muttered a few choice curses.

A young, sandy-haired man in pale blue robes was mounted on horseback just a few yards beyond the ring of flames. He was motioning with his hands and muttering under his breath with his eyes closed. Suddenly a sheet of water fell out of thin air onto another patch of burning grass.

The fire sputtered, but did not go out, and had quickly regained its full strength. The other piece of the ring that had been put out was refilled with fire now as well. Achmed chanced a glance at the dark woman; a pair of blazing eyes was all he could see beneath her black hood.

"You two," she finally growled, indicating the brothers, "take those two to Dead Man's Rock," she said, nodding to Rhapsody and Grunthor.

"I call the small one!" shouted the one referred to as 'Idiot.'

"Dammit," muttered the other.

"Excuse me?" Rhapsody blinked.

The dark woman turned to the Sindarians. "Go with the Idiots," she said, "they'll take you to where we need to be."

"Some'ow Oi find it 'ard to trust a duo called the Idiots," Grunthor replied.

"Well they're the only ones capable of carrying you two, unless you want to run the rest of the way…" the dark woman snapped back.

"Carry?" Rhapsody asked.

"Go now," the dark woman told the twins. "Leave from the back." They nodded and turned to go, Rhapsody and Grunthor being dragged, well, as much as one could drag the giant Sergeant-Major, behind.

"What about Achmed?" Rhapsody demanded before she would let herself be pulled away.

"The Dhracian never leaves my sight," the dark woman replied. "Now go!"

The woman watched the window as the others left, then rounded on Achmed and pointed a sharp finger at him. "You," she rasped, "with me."

"Just where is it we're going?" Rhapsody asked as the young men led her and Grunthor out onto the terrace.

"Dead Man's Rock," they chorused.

"That sounds invitin,'" Grunthor mumbled.

The fire ring blazed around them, but none of the attackers had made their way around to the back of the mansion just yet. The brothers were comparing bird feathers they had pulled out of their cloaks and bickering amongst themselves. The one referred to as the 'Imbecile' casually inched toward Rhapsody.

"No!" Idiot #1 shouted. "I already called her!"

"But that's not fair!" whined Idiot #2. "You're bigger, you should take the bigger one!"

"Too bad!" Number One replied. "I called her first."

"Excuse me," Rhapsody interrupted. The brothers looked at her.

"Ah-hem," they muttered, "right." They put away the feathers they had been holding and faced each other.

"Eagle?" the Imbecile asked.

"Yeah," the Idiot agreed. Then suddenly, the two brothers' features began to shift. Their bodies started to stretch and grow; their faces elongated, and in a matter of moments they had metamorphosed into two massive eagles the size of elephants.

"Bloody hrekin," Grunthor mumbled. "Never seen that before."

The two eagles shook and folded their wings into place. They crouched down beside Rhapsody and Grunthor.

"What?" Grunthor demanded.

"Do they want us to…" Rhapsody stuttered, "to get on?" The Eagles nodded vigorously.

Achmed hurried after the dark woman as she rushed down the stairs and out the great front doors. The fires were raging all around, the smoke choking the air. Achmed felt vaguely as if he were about to face a F'dor, with the devouring flames and all.

The woman led him into an attachment of the mansion, a somewhat less ancient stable. She threw the doors open with a bang and hastened in. She was about to enter one of the stalls when the clank of a metal bolt sounded from behind. Both Achmed and the dark woman whirled around.

"Hello, my love," Morris greeted from the door.

The dark woman whipped out her sword and advanced on the lanky man. Achmed already has his cwellan sighted, and he doubted very much that the man would be able to resist its razor disks as well as the dark woman.

Untitled marched up to the smirking woodsman and brought her sword down hard over his head. He raised his own sword up just in time to force her blow aside.

The woman didn't let it phase her. She went after the man relentlessly; hammering at him from every side, forcing him back out into the fire ring. There were a few other men outside waiting, the water mage among them. The woman paused for a moment, the man beginning to sweat near his temples while she remained unfettered.

The dark woman fixed her gaze upon the man with the magical powers. With a movement so quick only the swiftest of eyes could have seen it, the woman flung a fireball at the man's feet. He jumped as it landed an inch before his toe, and frantically tried to put it out by stomping at it. The woman laughed.

"You call that a water mage!?" she yelled. "He can't even snuff a fireball!" All were silent. "No, not a water mage," she continued, circling the terrified magician tauntingly, "a witch-doctor! A voodoo artist." The man began to tremble. "I have no patience for witch-doctors," the woman muttered.

He was dead before he hit the ground.

The man named Morris roared and charged. The woman met him head on. "I've suffered enough at the hands of your inbred family," she snarled. "Now I shall finally be rid of you."

The man pulled away and shouted to his guards.

"Make yourself useful," the dark woman ordered Achmed. "Entertain them."

He didn't need to be told twice. Half the men were down before they were even aware of his presence. Then he took to the shadows and drew the daggers that the dark woman had given him. There was no sense in wasting disks.

Untitled advanced upon Morris, and then attacked. It was all Morris could do to just block her sword. The hits came with such force that even the most heavy-handed soldier would have a tough time returning them.

The man was beginning to tire, yet the woman kept coming at him. He spun and stumbled, all the while she continued to advance.

"What now, Morris?" she asked. "The last of that bloodline, your family will end in shame and your ancestors have died in vain, if you should fail. You will be forgotten and forsaken."

Morris raised himself to his full height, breathing heavily. "I am of the son of Colonel Morris the fifth of the House of Morrison," he said. "My ancestors were decreed nobility by the Queen of…"

"I knew your ancestors, boy," the dark woman cut in, "they weren't all that noble."

The man's face contorted in rage as he made one last attempt to fell the fire-flinging woman. She repelled him easily and he fell to the ground.

"O thou merciful God," he prayed as the woman came toward him.

"You better pray for _my_ mercy, boy," Untitled whispered, placing the tip of her sword at Morris's throat, "for I heed neither any god in heaven nor any demon in hell."


	13. The Fall

**A/N: **

Chris steel: I got a bit of a Van Helsing vibe too while writing this. There might be a few more Helsing-esque things later as well. For some reason I just love it when Dracula a. walks out of the fire and morphs from decaying skeleton into normal person, and b. grabs hold of the cross and melts it.

Dalamar Nightson: Yes, a whopping two chapters that I've been hording for weeks! I'm flattered that I'm on your Author Alert list, but I'm afraid you won't get many alerts. I work in spurts. Write a few chapters, then silence for a few weeks…months…time undetermined. I can't help it. I jump around a lot. As for the Morrison family, well, that's addressed somewhat in Book of Black, which has yet to be posted, yet to be typed, actually. Half of it is written in a notebook…the other half is still running around inside my head waiting for me to catch it and wrestle it onto the paper.

**Chapter 13 - **The Fall

Achmed watched from the shadows as the dark woman drew her sword swiftly across the fallen man's neck. She glared down at him only a moment before turning to the Bolg king, a wild glint in her eyes. In that instance she resembled everything of the demon from the underworld that the dead man had called her.

The woman plunged her sword into the ground beside Morris's limp body and disappeared into the stable. Achmed stepped cautiously out from his hiding place and peered down at the dead man. His eyes were wide in terror and his mouth frozen in a silent gasp. Whatever he had done to the woman with the scars he had paid for dearly.

The dark woman emerged from the barn, leading a large black stallion and a tall blood bay mare. She thrust the mare's reins into Achmed's hands, and vaulting onto the stallion headed for the fire ring. The woman walked right into the flames and reined her horse around to face Achmed; a blazing silhouette of a damned soul.

"I hope you can ride, Snake Man," she rasped before spurring her horse forward and disappearing into the flames.

-

Grunthor helped hoist Rhapsody onto the back of the enormous eagle before hauling himself up onto the other. He didn't have a chance to crack a single lewd comment as the bird suddenly lurched upward, beating its giant wings forcefully. The Sergeant-Major grabbed a fist full of feathers as the eagle took to the sky, Rhapsody and her ride just behind.

-

Achmed stared at the place in the wall of fire that the dark woman had vanished. Cursing, the Bolg lord kicked the mare and followed. The bay didn't flinch as she neared the inferno, but just as they reached the edge of the fire, the flames split apart and allowed them safe passage. Once the tip of the mare's tail left the opening, the flames sprang closed again in a fury.

The dark woman galloped headlong into the forest surrounding the clearing of the hill, her cloak whipping out behind her, mingling with her stallion's midnight tail. The harsh man of that other world was following, bent low over the withers of the blood bay mare. The woman returned her gaze in front of her and urged her horse faster.

They rode on in a frenzy, not looking back at the burning mansion. Having finally killed the wretched Morris, the dark woman gave no thought to the plans or traps he may have laid for her in her attempts to escape. Thus it was that the two assassins of the shadows ran recklessly into a ring of Morris's men.

A net was dropped down in front of the woman. She cursed and whirled the stallion around, only to be stopped by another such net. She was about to fling a ball of fire at the impediment when a man suddenly dropped down from the trees and knocked her off her horse.

She got to her feet mumbling a string of curses under her breath. The man who had knocked her to the ground didn't wait for her to regain her composure. Instead, he hurled a knife at her chest. The woman saw it just in time and batted it away with her hand. She damned the man as she turned her palm up to reveal a large, deep gash bleeding profusely. The bleeding soon stopped, however, and she returned her attention to her foolhardy attacker.

"Idiot," she muttered, tossing her own knife at his head.

Achmed cursed from behind her as he was assaulted in the same fashion. Untitled glanced over her shoulder to assure herself that the Bolg king was taking care of himself, when she noted that the horses had retreated to one corner of the enclosure, rearing and stomping at the men who tried to go near them.

Another party of assailants dropped down from the trees and surrounded the dark woman. She drew her double-ended spear and waited for one of them to move.

Achmed growled as he righted himself. Nothing perturbed him more than being caught unprepared. The armed men didn't present much of a challenge, however, and the former assassin had no trouble dispatching them.

After he had felled his few enemies, he was left alone. All other tree men were focused on the untitled woman. He shouldered his cewllan and aimed it at the men at Untitled's back.

The woman lunged and slashed at the two men just in front of her. With a subtle whooshing of air three men behind her fell. _Convenient, _she thought.

One man ducked inside of her spear and came hurling at her unprotected side. The woman growled and met him with a fist in the face. Suddenly there was an excruciating pain in her left thigh. She swiveled around and found the head of an arrow buried deep within the muscle.

"Dammit," she muttered, seizing the shaft and yanking back. She let out an angry yell of pain and threw the bloodied arrow to the ground. Untitled looked up at the boughs of the trees, searching for the camouflaged archers. Bad move.

She screamed bloody murder as her hands flew to her left eye; the same eye the veiled man had shot not too many days before. She fought back the pain and lifted her head, a look of rage that clearly spelled death to anyone who dared show themselves.

Achmed retracted as he saw the woman raise her head. An arrow had found its way into her eye, and now the feather-tipped shaft protruded grotesquely from the socket.

"Always with the eye!" she shouted to one in particular.

A few brave men must have decided that with her impaired vision she'd have a harder time protecting herself, for two more jumped out of the trees and attacked. Foolish, of course, for all the arrow really did was provoke her.

She fought off both men at her front and her back, when the Bolg lord noticed a movement in the leaves. He reached for a weapon, but found a tree man there instead, and so called out to the dark woman. The arrow pierced the flesh just above her heart, and she faltered.

Achmed heard her take a rattled breath.

"Damn you wretched b-s," she rasped, continuing to hack at her remaining foe.

The archer in the tree knocked another arrow and Achmed called out again. The woman whirled around, only to receive an arrow to the heart. Achmed watched in astonishment as fire immediately sprang up around the woman and consumed her. All that was left of the demonic woman was a smoldering pile of ashes.


	14. The Rise

**A/N:**

Achmed Blacklad: Thanks! I will!

Dalamar Nightson: I've updated again! Hooray! But don't get your hopes up...this much updating in this amount of time is very good for me. I've had time and inspiration, and working computers! So there you go.

**Chapter 14 - **The Rise

Achmed's eyes stared unblinking at the smoldering pile of ash; his mouth pursed so tightly it almost disappeared. The dark woman had just burst into flame! Spontaneous combustion in the flesh.

The two tree men left goggled idiotically at the gray flakes, not knowing what just happened, or what to do next. Then there was a shift among the embers.

Achmed went rigid.

The cinders slowly fell apart as a dark, shadowy demon rose up from the ashes. She was tall and lean, dark as the dead; fury incarnate. The only distinguishable feature among the shadows was the devil's eyes: glowing red and terrible out from their black pits.

The eyes blazed, locking onto the hidden man in the trees. She raised a horrifying hand below her face. Blue fire sprouted from the would-be fingertips, and the flames raced up the demon's arms. Without so much as a word or a blink, a streak of blue fire shot toward the archer in the boughs. He never had time to scream. The bones remained there in the limbs for years to come, as testament to the fury of the demon.

The other man, likewise, never had a chance, he was terrified to the point of petrifaction. His bones forever laid upon the dirt floor, until the earth and the leaves built up a mound over them, for no manner of creature animal or human, would dare go near the parched remains.

The demon then turned to the Bolg king and fixed her hellish stare on him. She raised up her hand, sparks darting in between her fingers. There was a rush of white light and a whistling scream as a bolt of searing heat blazed by Achmed's ear. The Dhracian was momentarily blinded, and his veils grew unbearably hot. When he was able to recover his vision the demon was behind him, leading the ghostly stallion out through the charred remains of their imprisoning nets.

-

Grunthor immediately decided that he did not like flying. He was much too far from the ground and the earth he felt most at home with. Even though this earth was not his earth, it was still more comforting than the slippery back of an oversized eagle-human. It was none too soon when they landed.

"Remind me to take the caravan back," Grunthor mumbled when Rhapsody walked shakily over.

The two giant birds landed neatly on a massive boulder placed outside the rubble of an old, long-since used, guard house. Standing beside the great gray rock was a guillotine. Next to the medieval decapitation device on the decaying platform was a single, swinging noose.

The two Idiots, as they were called, morphed back into their human selves and stood proudly side by side.

"Dead Man's Rock!" they declared.

A cold, bitter breeze whistled past, and somewhere a raven shrieked.

"I don't think I like it here," the Imbecile said to his brother.

"Me neither," replied Idiot.

"Think we should go get something to eat?" asked Imbecile.

"Most definitely," answered Idiot.

The twins quickly changed into identical sparrows and fluttered away.

"This just keeps gettin' better an' better," Grunthor grumbled.

-

When dawn came, the sight of the ghastly woman was only slightly less terrifying. Her scars were less intense, yes, but her eyes were not. Fire fueled by fury still blazed behind them, and the soot coating her skin made her seem dead and rotting.

Her cloak, miraculously, was still in tact. Her other clothes, though there, were tattered and charred and hanging off. Holes of mentionable size had been burned at will throughout her garments, with no apparent regard to placement. Her right arm lay bare, while the her left sleeve hung from her shoulder like a gimp wing; exposing a good deal of scared shoulder. There was absolutely no neckline to speak of, seeing as it had been singed completely off. The only thing keeping her chest covered was a modest strip of black cloth, which she had tied tightly around her bosom to keep it from spilling out.

Likewise her pants had been incinerated. Now she wore a very tight and very short black skirt. The exposed skin of her legs was not as littered with cuts and gashes as the rest of her body, except at her ankles, where it looked as though someone had tried hacking at them with a small ax.

Achmed watched the muscles in her legs strain and flex beneath her carbonized skin as she labored in rolling a large boulder away from a crevice in the wall of a ridge. When the rock finally slid aside, a dark round hole was exposed; the entrance to a small cave.

The demon woman left her pack of weapons outside and went in, soon disappearing among the shadows. Achmed waited anxiously. The dark woman hadn't uttered a word since her rise from the ashes, and the Bolg lord did not like how unnerved that made him.

He heard rummaging, and then a curse. He let out an unconscious sigh of relief.

"Rutting, miserable pack of ingrates," she muttered. "Ungrateful little b-s."

The woman from hell stalked out of the black hole, dark hair whipping about her in the wind.

"Why anyone would want to be reborn is beyond me!" she cried. "It's really not all it's cracked up to be, trust me." She strode angrily over to her horse. "And that light at the end of the tunnel…" she said, "doesn't exist."

-

"What do we do now?" asked Rhapsody, pulling her cloak closer about her. It was the beginning of summer when they arrived in this strange land, but at Dead Man's Rock the air was much colder than it should have been.

"Wait, Oi suppose," Grunthor replied.

So they did.

The crows cawed in the distance and the wind tore at them relentlessly. A raven came by and perched atop the Rock. It stared down at them with more intelligent malice than any bird had right to. Rhapsody was about to go mad when two fleeting balls of feathers came swooping in.

The raven took off into the sky as the sparrows landed at the base of the boulder. They quickly changed into two satisfied humans.

"Best cut of beef I've ever tasted," Idiot said to Imbecile.

"Mmmm…" Imbecile agreed, patting his stomach.

Grunthor glared at the twins.

Imbecile caught his glance and shrugged, taking out a piece of bread from his cloak and tearing off a large chunk.

A gust of wind pelted by, bringing with it a sound like a scream.

"Remind me why we came back here," Imbecile said.

"Well, this place is very scary, being the home of restless spirits and all," said Idiot, "but there's one thing that's worse than angry ghosts."

"What's that?" Imbecile asked.

"Angry Black," Idiot replied.

"Oh yeah." He shuddered.

Grunthor and Rhapsody watched the brothers' exchange in silence, not capable of understanding what was being said.

The brothers sat in silence, eating, and the other two watched, wondering.


	15. Blood

**A/N:** Just to warn you, though I do not think this chapter warrants an R rating, it does get a bit more...disturbing. Think A Beautiful Mind meets Macbeth, if that makes sense.

**Chapter 15 - **Blood

Achmed and the dark woman rode into a small town as it began to rain. Achmed darted quickly into the pub they'd tied their horses at. Untitled washed the soot from her face before following the Bolg king inside.

The Laughing Raven was like any other pub; dark, dank, dirty. And the room wasn't much different.

Achmed stood in the shadows, waiting for a sign from the nameless woman.

At a table in the corner beside the door sat two dark haired men, drinking and cracking lewd jokes. Then one caught sight of Untitled.

"Ho," he said, "now there's one as looks worth the coin."

"Where?" asked the other, turning round in his seat and spotting the dark woman with her exposed legs.

Untitled took two strides before the man with the beard-in-progress spoke up.

"Hey there, Beautiful," he crooned, stepping up behind Untitled and wrapping an arm around her waist.

"Eff off, pervert," the dark woman growled, elbowing him in the stomach.

"Oof!" the man muttered.

"Slime-swaddling pig," she continued. Her hood slid off as she whirled around, preparing to give him a kneeing he'd never forget.

"Gyps?" the man asked. "Why, if it isn't the Gypsy from Hell!" he exclaimed. "You know, Gyps, darlin,' if you dressed and wore your face just like that, you'd make a good keep at a whore house."

"Go- yourself," Untitled retorted.

"Well now, that's what the ladies down at Miss Lily's are for, aren't they?" the man replied.

Untitled glared at him, then pulled up her hood and turned to walk away.

"So what brings you to Stag Creek, anyway?" the man questioned. "Looking for another lover to murder?"

There was a dagger in the woman's hand before the man finished his last word. She slowly pivoted back around.

_Kill him!_ hissed the voices in her head. _Kill him!_

The rage mounted in her withered soul. She took a step toward the mocking man, then another. She put the knife away as she gathered speed. The demon woman caught the man by the neck and pinned him up against the wall.

The man choked as she tightened her hold. Then a strange, nauseous, hissing sound emanated from the woman's hand as wispy white steam rose from the man's skin.

She was burning him.

He choked and he struggled, uselessly, for the woman's grip was a vice. He gagged one last time before he went limp and Untitled let him slide to the floor. There was the shape of a hand burned into the dead flesh around his neck, and when his friend came over to check on him, he couldn't keep his stew down.

Untitled went out into the rain to fetch the horses. She knew she couldn't very well stay there much longer, not after that. Ancient anger and painful memories swelled inside her, the nagging little voices adding to her anguish.

_Murder? Murder!_ they cried. _What does that scum-hopper know of murder? Murder your lover, he says, your LOVER! Idiot! Imbecile! Filth!_

"Enough!" the woman shouted.

Achmed reluctantly came outside, protected from the brunt of the rainfall by the overhang of the pub's roof. He saw the dark woman out in the road, pacing; her horse's reins clutched tightly in her left hand, while her right waved about her head frantically. She was shaking her head and muttering violently.

_You're only angry because you know there is truth to what the moron says, _whispered the devil's voice.

"No," the woman said. "No, no."

_Yes._

"No!" she screamed. The horse whinnied; tossing his head and prancing nervously.

_Why do you shun me? Why do you run from the truth?_ the voice asked. _Without me you loose everything._

"I already have lost everything!" the woman shouted back. "You're the only thing keeping me from forgetting! You are the detainer of my freedom!" Her hand went to her temple. "Let go! Leave me!"

_Freedom? Are you blind? You have more freedom now than anyone could ever imagine! _the voice shot back. _And do you remember how you got such freedom?_

"Stop it," the woman warned. "Shut up! Just shut up!"

_You cannot possibly have forgotten,_ the voice continued. _Treachery, lies, betrayal…_ it said.Violent scenes from her past began to flash before the dark woman's eyes. _Blood…_ the voice whispered. _His blood on your hands._

The woman looked down at her hands, to see them covered in dark red gore. She tried wiping it off, but it continued to flow down and between her fingers. The stain spread over her palm, and continued to wash up her arm.

Achmed saw the woman throw the reins to the ground. She stared horrifically down at her palms and screamed.

"No!" she cried desperately. "Stop it! Stop!"

She was tearing at her hands, shaking them, trying to rid them of some invisible torment.

"Stop!" she screeched. "No!"

The dark woman was becoming panicked, and it disturbed the Dhracian. She seemed possessed, as if by an evil spirit; or sick. His guide of Time and Space was a raving lunatic.

Achmed pulled his veils and cloak closer about him, and stepped out into the rain.

Untitled could fight no more. The voice and the part of her mind it controlled took over. She was no longer in the middle of the street in the rain, with a dark lord from another land to guide or a neurotic tinker for a master. Instead, she was transported backward, to that time in her life when all went to hell and never came back.

Angry, anguished tears escaped from her eyes, when suddenly there was another presence. She couldn't see him, but she could feel him. "Get me out!" she wanted to cry, before she would see it again. She had to get out before that terrible picture that had haunted her nightmares for centuries presented itself.

She was falling deeper into despair, when there came a distant voice. And then…

The dark woman was standing in the street, rain pouring down; staring into the mismatched eyes of the Firbolg king.

She gasped and began calming her breathing as the king glared at her. There was no pity in those eyes. No pity, no fear, no judgment. She didn't trust him.

"I am not crazy," she told him, snatching away the reins from his hands. He continued to glare.

The woman mounted her stallion, ignoring the fact she still had no proper pants, and spurred him toward the gates. The veiled man thought her crazy. Weak, sick, even. She could not let it happen again. The voices would have to remain silent.

-

A/N: Another one? Well ,yes. I don't normally write them, but I felt like it today for some reason. Not as bad I guess as it could have been, but then again, the story's not over.

What was that scene she couldn't dare face again? You'll find out later.


	16. The Rocking Chair

**A/N: **At last! I know, it's been a while, I'm sorry. Hadn't been inspired lately. Then I got some more down, but kept forgetting to post it! Please forgive my negligence. I will do my best to remain more on task in the future. Comments would also be most welcome, any suggestions or the like. Thank you!

Evil's Muse, a.k.a. the Jackalope Huntress, or The One Who Can't Make Up Her Mind About A Name.

**Chapter 16 - **The Rocker

As Rhapsody waited she listened intently to the two shape-shifting twins. She tried to pick up the patterns and the rhythm of their speech so that she could try to learn to communicate with them. It proved to be more difficult than normal, for their language was so foreign it was like some extremely obscure jargon.

"The small one kinda looks like Harlequin," Idiot mused, gnawing on his last bit of bread.

"That's our third cousin once removed on our mother's side, right?" Imbecile asked, peeling a potato with his fingers.

"Second cousin twice removed on our father's side," Idiot corrected. "The one we stayed with after Aunt Booby died…"

"The one with the weird looking rat?" asked Imbecile.

"The Chihuahua? No. The one with the freakishly large birds," answered Idiot.

"Oh yeah! She was the one who left us stranded on that mountain pass that time, right?" Imbecile said excitedly.

"No," Idiot replied.

"Oh," Imbecile sighed. "Then who am I thinking of?"

"Uncle Bozo."

"Oh, right." Imbecile paused. "What were we talking about again?"

"No idea," Idiot replied.

"Huh." Imbecile shrugged, and the two went back to eating.

The dark woman rode her horse into the ground, hell-bent on reaching Dead Man's Rock by sundown. The rain had ceased to pour down and the sun was beginning to peek its way through the fleeing clouds. The appearance of the sun angered her, but nothing angered her more than when the devil's voice took control of her. Nothing, except for Him.

Him that killed her hope, him that killed her people, her life. He took it all away. He took her life and then he took her death. He turned her into this, experiment, this…repulsive carcass. This thing with the voices only she could hear…this wretched demon unworthy of a name.

She reined the stallion in hard, spraying dirt all over the snoozing twins. The brothers sputtered and looked around frantically.

"It was the cat!" Imbecile declared, coming to. He quickly shut up and took a step closer to his brother when he saw the demon woman towering over him on her great black horse.

"Take them," she ordered. She didn't need to elaborate.

Fury drove the woman faster; Achmed and the others on the equine versions of the twins struggled to keep up. Once the dark woman crested a small hill she pulled reined her horse in so the others could catch up. Her stallion pranced and snorted underneath her as she gazed out at the plains before her.

Black clouds were rolling in from the horizon, slowly eating away the dusk-tinted sky. A deep, earth-shaking rumbled sounded from afar. A storm was brewing; the larger, more ferocious version of the previous afternoon's. The woman's skin prickled as she felt the static begin to build. Summer storms were brutal, the rains often bordering on monsoons.

The dark woman took her eyes off the clouds and let them roam over the valley before her._ Where's the little drudge?_ she thought bitterly. Then she spotted it; a small thatched hut, little better than a shack. The old wooden rocker swayed back and forth on the deserted porch. She could hear it creak.

The woman cast a glance over her shoulder, decided the hirelings were close enough, and took off again toward the dilapidated cabin.

Achmed saw the woman stop for a brief moment upon a small knoll. She looked around for a second, then took off again. The Dhracian could smell rain in the air, and his sensitive nerves burned. Water.

Rhapsody had only briefly seen the dark woman on her horse before she rode off again, but she had noticed that her garb had somewhat changed. For instance, the dark woman no longer wore any pants. Grunthor had also noticed this, but what the Sergeant-Major had not noticed, were the scars around the woman's ankles, and the long red tear down the back of her left calf.

Untitled slid off her horse into the dust surrounding her employer's hutch and began to un-cinch the girth. The Snake-man and his two companions rode up just as she slapped the stallion on the butt and sent him running off. Once the one with a purpose dismounted, she hauled his saddle off and let his horse follow the other. The two useless ones got off and the twins morphed back into their human selves. Another clap of thunder sounded in the distance.

"Uh, hey, Black…" Imbecile began, "you think we could, uh, stay here for a while? Maybe?"

"No," the dark woman answered curtly. "Leave."

"Just until the storm passes?" Idiot asked.

"We don't want to get rained on," Imbecile added. "We don't like being wet!"

"Do you like being burned?" the dark woman questioned, in that low, quiet tone that the brothers had long ago learned to fear.

"Shutting up," Imbecile quipped, and the twins turned into two sparrows and disappeared into the distance.

"Bloody morons," the dark woman grumbled. The Sindarians said nothing.

The woman in black took one more look at the approaching thunderclouds and stepped up onto the porch. Her boot made a solid thud against the dried wooden planks. The old rocker creaked. She took another step and the thunder rolled. She opened the door.


	17. Phyla

**Chapter 17 - **Phyla

Achmed entered the cabin behind the cloaked woman and was immediately choked with thick, warm air. It smelled heavily of some putrid mixture of bizarre chemicals. The entrance opened up into one main room; to the right was a lit fireplace, a tattered, sinking sofa whose once bright red fabric had faded into a dull, brown color; and a solid wooden table in between. To the left was an extremely cluttered long table, with a floor to ceiling cabinet, filled with an infinite number of glass bottles of different liquids, and a short little man with gray hair and glasses, hunched over the far end of the bench. He looked up.

The dark woman scrunched up her nose at the smell of the tinker's house. Not only did it smell bad, but it always reminded her of a night she'd rather forget. Phyla looked up from his bubbling flasks.

"You're late," he said.

The dark woman took something out of her cloak and tossed it onto the table. "Shrivel up, you great bleached prune," she told him, heading toward the slouching couch.

He squinted through his magnifying goggles that made his eyes look a like an insect's. "What the hell happened to you?"

"Useless and Temporary," the woman said without looking back, "this is Phyla, the claustrophobic kleptomaniac."

"You know, Dark One, the whore look doesn't really work for you," Phyla said. "What did you do? Blow up?" Without so much as glancing over her shoulder, the dark woman bent her arm back and shot a jet of fire at the little man. He ducked his head just before it caught him, and the flames crashed against the far wall, singeing a small circle in the wood. Phyla looked from the woman to the burnt spot on the wall, then back, and shook his head.

"You can sit wherever you like," Phyla told the other worldly ones. They just eyed him suspiciously. He rounded on the dark woman on the couch. "Why can't they understand me!" he demanded.

"Probably because you're a great twittering dolt," she replied. "Either that, or the fact that they're from another planet. My guess is it's a combination of the two."

"Why didn't you give them the tablets?" Phyla went on. "I told you to give them the tablets!" The dark woman stood from the sofa and slowly made her way over to the tinker with long, purposeful strides.

"Do you really want to start an argument with me, old man?" she whispered, looking down at him with fire in her eyes.

He quickly looked away and went to retrieve something from one of the many cabinets.

Achmed observed everything quietly. It was not in his nature to readily trust anything, so when Phyla offered him two oddly shaped red pills he was reluctant to take them.

"Take them if you don't want me to act as a translator," the dark woman called from her position back on the couch. "Then again, even if you don't take them, I'm still not going to play translator." After a few moments of hesitation the dark woman yelled out, "Oh, just take the damned pills!"

Reluctantly, the Bolg lord swallowed the tablets. They were small and gel-like, and once they were down he felt an odd sensation in his inner ear.

"Can you hear me now?" Phyla asked. Rhapsody and Grunthor nodded. "Good." Achmed was a bit more weary. Was that what he really said, or just what he wanted them to hear?

"How long do these last?" Achmed asked. Phyla held up a finger. He popped a pill himself and then asked the Bolg king to repeat the question. Achmed growled but then repeated it, the sandpaper sound of his voice even more harsh from the recent lack of use.

"Hm, dunno," Phyla answered. "A few days, a few weeks, years, forever, I'm not sure really."

"Great," Achmed glowered.

The wind outside began to pick up. The rocker on the porch creaked monotonously. The hair on the back of the dark woman's neck stood on end.

"If you aren't too wearied by your travels," Phyla went on, "I have some very exciting things to show you." Achmed glared at the short graying man through his veils. "Things I think might help us to track this demon thingy."

"Thingy?" Achmed demanded. Phyla shrugged.

"Whatever. Over here," he said, shuffling over to the far end of the long cluttered table, "I've got something new." The rocker continued creaking. The dark woman stared intently at the fireplace, trying not to hear it. "It's a fast-firing crossbow, it may not help with the demon itself, but it might help to diminish the number of its cronies…"

The dark woman could stand it no longer. She vaulted from her seat, stormed out to the porch, and faced the decrepit old chair. The sky had turned a menacing shade of gray, where flashes of white light and low growls of thunder rent the sky. A few drops of rain splattered on the dusty ground as a gust of wind roared by and sent the rocker creaking dangerously forward.

The woman yelled.

"Die, you ancient, filthy, suffocating tinder box!" The dark woman flung her hand out and incinerated the elderly piece of furniture. Once the chair had been sufficiently reduced to ash, the scarred woman stalked back into the shack, muttering fiercely under her breath.

"You rebuild that chair again, Twit, and I swear," the woman growled, "I will carve out your eyes with a butcher knife and stuff them bleeding in your mouth so you will suffocate on your own retinas." She fell back down on the couch. The others were silent.

"Don't mind her," Phyla told them, ignoring the woman in black, "she's a bit…" he tapped his fingers to his temple. "It's quite sad really," he whispered. "Hears voices, you know."

"And whose fault is that?" the woman called without looking back.

Phyla shook his head. "Ignore it," he repeated. "Here, look at this," he went on, picking up a wooden stake.

The storm raged all around the alchemist's hut, creating such tumultuous ruckus that it was impossible for anyone to sleep. Achmed sat in a dark corner near the fireplace, obscured by shadows. Rhapsody and Grunthor were seated next to each other on the sofa before the fire. The little man called Phyla continued to bustle around his bubbling flasks set up all over the workbench. No one knew where the dark woman had gone.

Achmed rested his fingertips on his mouth, deep in contemplation. He was giving thought to the whole unusual situation. Perhaps this was all a set-up devised by some extremely clever magician, to make it appear as though what he was seeing and hearing and experiencing were real. But the heat from the mutilated woman's eyes, hands…all that she knew…how could all that be a fabrication? Yet, it seemed the only logical explanation.

The Bolg king pursed his lips. The others didn't know about her. They didn't know the extent of her mutilation, her debilitation; how those so-called 'voices' had taken over her mind in the street, how she had gone up in flames and been re-born from the ashes. The Phoenix.

Rhapsody could tell by the way Achmed touched his fingertips to his lips that he was thinking deeply about something. She assumed he was assessing their mission; the F'dor, the host. The Singer's mind wandered to the nameless woman in black. She hears voices is what the odd-looking man had said. Perhaps that would explain some of the muttering. But the whole Name issue, Rhapsody fidgeted anxiously in her mind. Everyone had a name, the dark woman just didn't want to share it, which was understandable, in a way, but the gall of the woman to declare that she had _none_. Well that, obviously, was a lie.

Grunthor was uncomfortable. He did not like being so far away from the Sleeping Earth Child, and the land here was not his land. He could not feel the rhythmic hum of the earth or shape it and blend into it as he had back home. He was beginning to regret his decision to come. He should have stayed behind to keep watch over Ylorc and the Sleeping Child.

Yet for all their musings, the Three remained confused and ignorant, and for the first time in its long parasitic existence, the F'dor was confused. It had tried to transfer to the perfect host when the new host had killed the demon's previous one. It had heard stories, rumors, of this most recent one. Powerful, deadly; an ancient demon, and better yet, it could not be killed.

So, naturally, when the F'dor happened upon this mythic being, it immediately abandoned its old host in favor for the fabled demon. It was just as well, for the other demon beheaded the F'dor's original host, anyway. But when the F'dor jumped, it found that clinging to the once human soul was all but impossible. It was dead and shriveled inside, hotter than hell itself. It was like trying to climb the sheer face of an iceberg with nothing but your hands. Then the intended host must have sensed the invasion, for how else could the F'dor suddenly feel itself being rejected; flung from the desolate body with a force it had never expected.

The host was gone, and the demon was alone.


	18. The Fireside Chat

**Chapter 18 - **The Fireside Chat (The Topic of Names)

Phyla examined a vial of a shiny green suspension through his magnifying spectacles, assessing the ratio of the tiny granules to the grassy liquid. It was not quite right. The green wasn't dark enough, and there were just a tad too many floating particles. He sighed and set the tube back into its holder. He took off his goggles and made his way over to one of the chairs by the fire.

The little man let out another sigh and rubbed his wearied face with his equally weathered hand. He didn't seem to notice the others until he opened his eye slightly as his fingers pulled apart the lid. They were all looking at him. And the way the thin man with the veils stared at him with those oddly mismatched eyes reminded him of her.

"Er," he mumbled, "something wrong?"

"Yeah, Oi'd say there's somthin' wrong," Grunthor said. Achmed said nothing, but continued to glare at the 'twittering old madman.' Phyla shot him a nervous glance before turning to the giant Sergeant-Major. "This 'ole bloody thing is wrong," the green man continued. "What the 'ell is goin' on 'ere, where's 'ere, anyway? And who the 'ell are you? And what the 'ell crawled up _'er_ arse?" he demanded, referring to the woman in black.

Phyla blinked at him blankly for a moment. "Why, nothing, that I know of," he replied. "Didn't she explain anything to you?" he asked.

"She tried," Grunthor muttered. "But it sounded like a load o' crock to me."

"Hm, yes," Phyla mused, "I suppose it would. You know I brought you here to kill that F'dor creature, correct?"

"Well, yea."

"Then what doesn't make sense?" Phyla questioned. He didn't give anyone a chance to respond, however. "Now, I have a few suspicions as to who the F'dor could be. The first is one, fairly high-placed man among the well-to-do families. Old money, self-centered, has his own troop of skilled woodsman warriors. Morris is his name, li…"

"No," Achmed said suddenly. Phyla's head snapped toward the shadowy figure. He'd forgotten about the Dhracian in his silence.

"Excuse me?" he asked.

"No," Achmed repeated. "It's not him." There was a brief silence. "Who else?" he demanded when the little old man did not continue.

"Wait a moment, Achmed," Rhapsody said, confused. "How do you know?"

The Bolg lord shifted his gaze to the small Lirin woman, the opposite side of his coin. "We met him once," he said. "In the forest. He was the one who attacked that wretched woman's sorry excuse for a fortress."

Rhapsody furrowed her brow. "How do you know this?"

"I was there," Achmed said through gritted teeth. He disliked being questioned. "She killed him." He looked back at Phyla. "Next."

"Huh," Phyla huffed. "She did, did she? Lord knows she's been trying long enough. Well, that narrows it down by one. There's also Lord Dumarse. Tall, blonde, guy; not very friendly, not very smart either, but nobility, so what can you do, eh? Then there's Duke Eli. Kind of a rotund man, has hoards of money, likes to spend it on invading neighboring duchies."

"Is that all?" Rhapsody asked when the little man paused.

"Well, yes," Phyla answered. "We've been running short on high nobility and government since the Collapse. All the nobles been attacking and killing one another off. I mean, there's no king, no court, no order to anything. The country's in anarchy, but the people seem to like it better that way." The others just stared at him. "I know what you're thinking," he went on, "'why don't the neighboring countries just come in and take over?' Well for one, this is an island; two: we're pretty much useless to outsiders, and three: main-landers are afraid of boats." It was clear that the Three had more questions, but Phyla was not in the mood for his knowledge to be questioned. "Please, no more questions," he said. "You'll just have to trust that I know these things just because I do. Now, you'll leave as soon as The Dark and Mighty gets back. She knows where the potential hosts would be."

"Where is she now?" someone asked.

Phyla sighed. "Oh, I don't know. Probably out trying to get hit by lightning." He rubbed his face again, trying to rid himself of his growing fatigue. "Sometimes I just wish she would stop trying to kill herself," he mumbled.

"What was that?" Grunthor asked.

"Oh, nothing, nothing," Phyla replied. He glanced over at the Bolg king, who was still glaring at him. He'd heard, no doubt. Then the Singer woman asked him something about a name. "Hm?" he said, turning to her. "Name? Oh, yes, she's got quite a few; pick one. The townspeople around the island call her Deathshadow, or Death's Shadow, some of the main-landers refer to her as Demon, Necromancer, the Devil's Daughter, or various other things along those lines; the weird, flighty blondes that keep following her around just call her 'Black.'"

"What do you call her?" Rhapsody asked.

"Me? Nothing," Phyla answered.

"So you just get her attention by going 'hey, you?'" Rhapsody demanded.

Phyla met her gaze with wide, innocent eyes. "Yes."

"Surely she must have a name?" Rhapsody persisted.

"I don't know," Phyla insisted. "I mean, I knew once, but I don't remember now. She tends to get a bit angry when I try to call her by anything specific. She prefers a certain amount of anonymity, I guess." He paused. "The stories going around these days, though growing fewer and further between, usually make a point of her being a child of Satan or Hell or something like that, so the whole name issue is usually null." He sighed.

"For the bad rap she gets, though, she's actually quite useful. I mean, the whole 'Killer' reputation is only there because she's a brilliant assassin and a bit short tempered. She was also once the official Queen of Thieves, you know. Strong, powerful, intelligent, if not psychotic. Some decades are better than others, but all in all, a good ally, if that's what you could call it," he added under his breath.

Suddenly the door slammed open and the dark woman, previously the topic of discussion, blew in. Her cloak was pulled close around her, her face completely hidden in shadow. She slammed the door behind her as a bolt of purple and yellow lightning rent the sky.

"Two hundred horsemen," a voice rasped from the depths of her hood. "Here a half-hour after the storm's end." She stalked off into the back room.

"Well, she does have that one negative aspect," Phyla sighed. "She makes enemies faster than she can kill them."


	19. The Phial

**A/N: **

**Dalamar Nightson:** I'm sorry you're not content with the length of my chapters, but believe me, I am trying! Yes, Phyla was/is interesting to write. I wanted him to be more 'mad scientist…' (Oh, and Book of **Black** - the 'untitled' woman's story (sort of, some things may differ) - is on Fiction Press underJackalope Huntress, if you're interested, but only the first few chapters.)

**Chapter 19 -** The Serum

"Get out here, woman! Not everybody has eternity!" Phyla cried after several vain attempts to summon the unnamed woman.

"Everybody in the world, or just the ones in this room?" she called back.

"Ha, ha," Phyla replied dryly. "You know what I meant."

Untitled shuffled out into the main room, leaned against the wall where the room met the hall, and directed a demonically bemused smirk toward the alchemist.

"No," she said. "Not everyone does. You, for instance, will have very precious little time left if you delay in my payment much longer." Phyla darted a slightly anxious glance toward the woman as he went fussing about his work table once again.

"Actually, your task is not completed yet," he answered.

"Your games are not amusing," the dark woman responded.

"You will receive payment once you have finished the job," Phyla continued. The dark woman remained still.

"I believe I have executed my end of the deal," she said quietly, steadily.

Phyla busied himself with searching for some lost gadget in effort to avoid looking up. "You must take these three to the F'dor and have it destroyed before I will consider your task fulfilled."

"That was not part of our bargain," growled the hooded woman from her shadow.

"No, no, I believe it was," Phyla insisted.

The dark woman straightened and stood behind the shorter man. "My task was to deliver the Brother to you," she said in a tone similar to the sky just before a tornado. "And I have done that. Now give me what I came for." She held out her hand.

"I'm afraid I can't until you have accomplished all that I asked," Phyla persisted with a shake of the head.

"Mentiroso!" the woman hissed. _Liar!_

Phyla looked up. "Outside," he whispered to the Three. "Wait outside. Now." Achmed, Grunthor, and Rhapsody reluctantly went out onto the porch after the mutilated woman began advancing upon the little gray magician. They would have resisted, but they could not defy the motion of their legs.

"Viejo maldito!" the dark woman seethed, forcing Phyla to stumble backward. "Malvado…mentiroso…"

"Now, now," Phyla said, "there's no need to get angry."

"You think I'm a fool?" the dark woman demanded. "You promised that all I had to do was go fetch the precious _Brother_," she said this word with a particularly malicious, sarcastic tone, "and bring him to you. Then, you would give me the potion. Of course, I never trust the promises of wizards…"

There was a pause as the dark woman grabbed the little man by the neck and lifted him off his feet. He made a gagging sound heard by the others on the porch. "Do you remember what I told you would happen if you failed to uphold your end?" she went on. "You, who value life so greatly, would find yourself slipping away from it…"

There were more gagging sounds as Phyla wriggled frantically in the woman's grasp, dangling a foot off the ground. The others tried to rush back into the house, but found the door unbreakable. Achmed cursed.

"Estoy harta de tus mentiras," the woman said. _Enough of your lies!_ "Dime la verdad!"

"The…" the little man gasped, "anti…" he wheezed, "is..nt…fin…ished"

"Por que?" _Why?_

Phyla gasped and wheezed, barely drawing in enough air to breathe out, "Not…enough…ti…eeee…" he gagged again as the woman tightened her grip.

"I don't believe you…" she whispered venomously.

The dark woman was so focused on the tinker's face and her grip on his throat, that she did not notice the hand that was not tugging at her own feel about the shelf behind him. She was about to crush his windpipe when he suddenly whipped about his arm and seared her arm. She let him go in a scream of agony.

The man fell in a pile to the ground, while the dark woman shrieked and clutched her forearm.

"Diablo!" she screamed.

The man scrambled to his feet, a little broken phial in his hand. A clear, shiny liquid swished back and forth in the bottom, barely spilling over the jagged glass edges.

"I'm…sorry…that I…had to…do it," Phyla said. "But…you left…me no…other choice."

"Imbecil," the woman growled. "Te mataré…" _I will kill you…_

The woman drew herself up to her full height and stepped forward, the cut on her arm glistening red. Phyla held out the vial.

"Another step and I will be forced to use this," he said. The woman ignored him and took another step forward. She thrust out her hand and seized the little glass tube.

The dark woman closed her fist around it and crushed it into a million sparkling shards. They fell to the floor with a delicate tinkling, flashes of red dancing off their many sides. Her hand was covered in traces of blood and shiny liquid glass. She ignored the pain.

"Know," she said, "that if you are gone when I return, I will find you. And I will kill you."

The dark woman turned on her heel and strode out the door.

-

There was no rain, the woman noticed. The midnight purple of the sky was periodically illuminated by flashes of light, followed by murderous claps of thunder. The Three stared at her with mixed looks of horror, confusion, and suspicion.

The woman paused as she heard a constant, distant rumbling. It wasn't like that of thunder. _Horsemen._

She met the gaze of the Bolg king, and told him with her eyes to follow if he wished to live. Rhapsody made protests under her breath as she frantically chased after Achmed and the homicidal woman.

As the woman swept through the knee-high grass she fought viciously against the nagging little voices.

_The traitor!_ they hissed. As if she had really trusted him to begin with. _He dared to use that serum? He dared to try to CONTROL you? _Us

"Silence," the dark woman hissed.

_Silence!_ the voice shrieked. _Silence! Silence is how you wound up here in the first place! I have had enough of silence! _The woman growled trying to subdue the angry thoughts. _Kill the b------d_, it said. _Kill him to teach him a lesson!_

_Killing him would mean forsaking the antidote,_ another voice countered.

_Bugger the antidote! He's a liar and a traitor! No one tries to control _me

The woman let out a frustrated shout and tried to shake the voices out.

_Control…you always have to be in control! Too proud, too stupid, to trust other people…_

_Trust? What reason have I to trust anyone? Every time I lost control, every time I let myself be happy, every time I tried to trust someone, or didn't for that matter, I lost something!_

_Loss happens._

_Not like that!_

"Erragh!" the dark woman huffed, stomping through the grass, battering her palm against her head. These were not things she needed to be hearing right now. She tried to stop herself, but the inner war raged on.

_You were lucky. Most people don't get to start over like you did. You didn't deserve him in the first place…_

"Shut up!" the woman hissed aloud.

_He gave you a second chance, he gave you his heart, his life, and what did you give him in return? Nothing._

"I gave him everything!" the woman whispered despairingly.

_You gave him a cold, heartless shell, _the voice retorted.

"I loved him," she pleaded.

_You killed him!_

"No!" The woman screamed and dropped to her knees. She began clawing at her face, her temples; desperately trying to dig out the torturous voices.

"Get out, get out, get out," she sobbed. "Out, damn you, out!" Tears began to well up in her eyes as she tore open the skin and scars on her face.

Achmed rushed over to the mutilated woman when she fell. She was tearing herself apart, ripping the flesh away in gruesome fury. He called for Grunthor to help him pry the woman off herself.

She resisted their first few attempts, but the Sergeant-Major's incredible bulk and strength finally allowed them to lift the woman to her feet and clamp her arms to her sides.

"Get off me!" the woman ordered. "Do not touch me!" She slapped away their hands with malicious rage. Grunthor watched in awe as the woman's face recovered from her attack, and returned to its normal, scarred yet unbleeding state. The hand that had crushed the phial, however, remained traced with the fine red lines created where the glass had cut her skin. They did not bleed, but they did not heal.

The dark woman hunched her back and glared at the two Cymarians like a cornered beast. Then she turned and headed off into the night.

"Sir," Grunthor whispered. "Oi think the woman might be a bit mentally unstable."

Achmed nodded.

---

Translations (more or less):

mentiroso - liar

viejo - old man

maldito/malvado - evil

Estoy harta de tus mentiras - I'm fed up with your lies

Dime la verdad - tell me the truth

Diablo - devil

por que - why

te mataré - I will kill you


	20. The Keep of Lord Dumarse

**A/N: **Dalamar Nightson: Thanks for the reviews! 'Unstable' is always much more fun to write, anyway. And as to Thieves, I did have little markers when I switched POVs, but they didn't load and I'm too lazy to fix them at the moment.

**Chapter 20 - **The Keep of Lord Dumarse

"It is true, then," Rhapsody whispered under her breath as the Three jogged along behind the dark woman, "what Phyla said about her hearing voices?"

"Well it certainly appeared that way to me," Grunthor replied.

"I don't like it," Achmed growled. "This is the second time she's lost control like that. I'm not so certain _she's_ not the one possessed."

"She's done that before?" Rhapsody asked in horror.

"After the house on the hill was attacked," Achmed explained. "After we'd escaped all those damned tree-men. We went into a pub. Some man made a comment about her 'murdering a lover' and she strangled him, burnt a hand print into his neck. When we left she started pacing and waving her hand around in the air like she was trying to swat a large fly. She started screaming; she clawed at her arm, like something was on it. Then her eyes went blank a moment before I snapped her out of it." He paused.

"Oi guess all those muttered curses and orders should 'ave tipped us off," Grunthor said.

"That poor woman," Rhapsody breathed.

Grunthor grunted. Neither he nor Achmed quite agreed to that. Worthy of skepticism and a close eye, yes; worthy of pity or compassion, not so much.

The woman ahead stopped. The others slowed and pulled up behind her.

"Would you kindly refrain from talking behind my back?" she rasped. "I can't tell if it's you or the voices in my head." They did not miss the sarcasm in the woman's voice. "Not to mention it is quite rude." Rhapsody blinked at the dark woman, ashamed, before the mentally unstable woman set off again.

--

They ran for what seemed like days. The sun was just beginning to touch the sky with a hint of pink when the unnamed woman halted them behind a small rise in a field flecked with random patches of trees. She beckoned them closer and directed their gaze over the knoll toward a large stone castle eight hundred yards away.

"The keep of Lord Dumarse," she declared, "better known as the Seat of Lord Dumb-ass."

Grunthor snorted.

--

"What do you mean 'the Duke moved right by us?'" demanded an average height man on the stocky side of build.

"He and his men just kept going," the wiry young clerk repeated. "They rode right on by the keep without stopping or making any indication of interest in the castle."

"That no good whoreson," the stocky man, Lord Dumarse, grumbled. "What is he up to?"

"It looked like he was headed in the direction of the Valley, my lord," squeaked the clerk.

"What? How do you know that?" the lord asked.

"Well, it lies in the general direction our scouts saw him headed," replied the clerk, patiently answering his slower-wit lord. "They followed him for a while, and should be reporting back soon with more information about his destination or direction."

"What? Oh, good, good," Dumarse grumbled. "See to it they report directly to me when they arrive."

--

"Dumber than dirt," the woman rasped. "No self-respecting F'dor would inhabit an idiot like that. Although, I suppose being stupid could allow the demon more control over its host," she added. "But I'd be more wary of his Captain…General…Commander…or whatever the hell the title is these days. He's manipulative and sly and arrogant, though not so much anymore after I rendered that general region useless," the dark woman leered. Grunthor and Achmed shifted uncomfortably.

"Are we going in to meet the bastard then, or are we just going to wait for them to find us?" Achmed growled, the sandpaper quality of his voice scratching bitterly at the air.

"Go on ahead, Snake Man," the mutilated woman said. "Go sniff the sucker out." She stepped aside and made a great sweeping bow to the Bolg king. Before the Dhracian could curse her or take a step forward, however, two riders came galloping across the lawn in front of them; their horses frothing and champing on the bits.

--

"My lord," bowed one of Dumarse's servants. "The scouts have arrived."

"Scouts?" Dumarse repeated. "What scouts?" The wiry little clerk whispered in his ear. "Oh, yes, yes," he said. "Show them in at once." The servant bowed low out the door and returned a few minutes later with the two out of breath riders.

"My lord," they breathed together, bowing slightly.

"Speak," Lord Dumarse commanded.

The one on the left, brown eyed and slightly taller than the other, spoke. "My lord, Duke Eli's men have bypassed the Keep. We followed them, at a distance, so as not to be seen, to the Valley. They stopped then, and appeared to circle around something, though we could not see what. And then a small wooden shack appeared from out of nowhere. The Duke's men then began to attack the shack. They broke in and hauled something else out with them, though we could not see what. Then they set the place ablaze and set off again northeast, back to the Duke's castle, no doubt. That is when we turned 'round and came back, as fast as we could."

Lord Dumarse furrowed his brow in contemplation. "He attacked a shack?" he asked. The man who had spoken nodded. "Narwhal!" he shouted. The clerk scurried forward and bowed. "Find Commander Ferrington and bring him here. Immediately," he ordered. The clerk bowed and rushed off to find the Commander. "He'll know what to make of this mess."

--

"What was that all about?" asked Grunthor once the two riders had disappeared into the keep and the horses led away to the stables.

"Scouts," the dark woman said. "Lookouts, spies."

"Do you think they saw us?" Rhapsody asked.

"No," the other woman replied, shaking her head. "Stay here," she whispered, taking a step out of the woods. Grunthor hauled her back.

"Just wait a second, missy," he said.

The woman pried Grunthor's fingers from her cloak with her uncanny strength.

"What is it exactly that you were planning to do?" Achmed hissed. "Walk in and ask for a chat with the Lord of the Keep in his conference room?"

"You're sarcasm amazes me," the woman replied. "And no, that won't be necessary. Dumb-ass will let me into his 'conference room.'" The woman then turned and headed toward the stone castle. "Stay here," she ordered as she left. She took a few steps, then stopped. "On second thought," she rasped, "Snake Man, with me. I don't trust you out of my sight.

The woman and the Dhracian approached the castle silently; two shadows fleeting shadows in the growing dusk. The woman took out a long rope from inside her cloak (she'd apparently found some things to re-outfit herself with). She looped one end and then threw it at on of the outcroppings on the lower parapet. She pulled the rope taught and tested her weight.

"You can climb, Snake Man?" she hissed. "Or must I carry you?"

Achmed glared at her, but she tied them together anyway, and the Bolg lord soon found himself half climbing, half dragged up the wall. As soon as they reached the top the dark woman hit the two guards on duty over the head with the hilt of her sword. They dropped to the ground without a sound. She then untied the rope connecting her and Achmed, and coiled the climbing rope and attached it back at her side. She nodded and the two set off along the wall.

--

Commander Ferrington was in his rooms, enjoying a nice drink and a smoke when someone rapped on his door.

"What is it?" he demanded, taking the cigar from his mouth.

"My lord wishes to speak with you, Commander," came the weak voice of the wiry little castle clerk. The Commander huffed.

"Tell him I'll be right up," he said, placing the cigar back in his mouth.

"It is urgent," the clerk continued.

"Worthless prat," the Commander grunted. "Lord Dumb-ass…"

"Sir?" came the squeaky little voice.

"All right, I'm on my way."

--

The dark woman led Achmed through the dank corridors of the all-but abandoned keep of Lord Dumb-ass, as the woman so fondly referred to him. They dodged a few servants and knocked out a few guards before they rounded a corner and came upon a skinny little man talking to a door.

"My lord wishes to speak with you, Commander," he squeaked. There was a muffled replied from the other side of the door.

"If you smell it," the woman whispered, "inform me, otherwise I'll kill him."

The woman began to creep up behind the clerk, pressed close to the wall. "It is urgent," the little man insisted. Another gruff reply from the door.

The woman stepped out from the shadows as the small man turned and knocked him over the head. He fell instantly, out cold. The woman beckoned Achmed forward and dumped the small man into his arms. Achmed almost dropped him out of repulsion, but resisted.

The dark woman knocked.

"I said I'll be right there!" shouted the man. The woman then turned the doorknob and entered.

--

"What the hell do you…?" Ferrington began as the clerk opened his door. He stopped short when a tall dark shadow, followed by another one carrying a small body, entered instead. The second shadow promptly dropped the unconscious clerk on the floor. "Reproduced, have you?" he snarled.

"No more than you have, my good ferret," the woman sneered. The man looked glared at her, disgusted.

"I thought you'd had enough of Lord Dumb-ass and his escapades?" Ferrington said.

The woman grinned in her grotesquely demonic way. "I have," she replied.

"Then what are you doing in my chambers?" he asked.

"Been a while since you've had a woman in here, eh, Ferret?"

"Is that your new boyfriend?" asked the Commander. "Seems an awful lot like you, dressed in black, trying to hide who he is. Watch yourself, friend, rumor has it she kills 'em once she's done with 'em."

The woman's eyes blazed momentarily. "If that were the case, at least he'd die happy, which is more than you can hope for." The woman flicked her finger and the man fell dead, burnt to a crisp.

--

"What the hell is taking the man so long?" demanded Lord Dumarse. The two scouts hung back and tried not to look anxious. Their liege could be a bit of an idiot at times, but he was also very dangerous. Stupid men with horrible tempers always were.

"Taking his sweet time," Dumarse growled. "Lord knows he hasn't got a woman in there! Hasn't for years…poor unlucky bastard…Narwhal!" he shouted. There was no answer. Then there came a knock upon the door. "Finally!" he roared, striding to the door and throwing it open. On the other side stood a tall hooded figured in black.

"You are not my General," he said.

"Nope," the figure rasped. Then all went black.


	21. The Echo

**A/N: **Dalamar Nightson: Thanks! Again. Sorry the updating is taking so long. What with Water Polo and school starting up again, I've found I have little FanFic time.

**Chapter 21 - **The Echo

The squat man fell to the ground in a heap.

"Not him, eh?" the dark woman rasped. "Too bad." She nudged him with her boot to roll him over on his back. "Maybe I'll just kill him anyway." She drew her sword.

The two scouts that had been hiding in a corner now leapt out, drawing their own swords, sworn to protect their lord.

"What's this now?" the woman asked herself. She squinted at the two men, scrutinizing them. She recognized them as the two spies who had come rushing up to the castle just before she and the Snake Man had. The dark woman re-sheathed her sword. The two men remained in their fighting stances.

"Who are you and why are you here?" the man on the right asked. Untitled said nothing, but instead took a step forward. "Stay back," the man ordered. "Stand along that wall."

The woman ignored him and continued to walk toward them. When she got too close the men tried to stab at her, but she was quicker, and managed to grab hold of their blades. The metal began to glow and the men let go of their weapons with cries of pain as the woman heated the blades beyond bearing. She threw the swords away and grabbed each man by their collar, then lifted them up into the air so their feet dangled an inch off the ground.

"What was your errand?" the woman commanded. The two men trembled. She shook them and repeated her question. "What was your errand!"

"We - we were sp - spy - scouting D-Duke Eli's men," the shorter one stammered.

"And?" the dark woman said. "What did you see?" Neither man said anything, so the woman shook them again and banged them up against the hard stone wall. "What did you see!" she demanded more forcefully.

The one man sputtered. "They - they went to the V-Valley, and ran - ransacked this sh-shack." The woman's eyes grew large.

"They set it on fire," the other man told her.

The woman looked anxiously between them both. "Did they take anything with them?" she demanded.

"We saw them drag something out with them. It looked like it could have been a man, but we were too far away to tell for certain."

"Where were they headed?" the woman asked.

"Back to the Duke's Castle Elmont," the man answered.

The dark woman let out a string of curse words as she let the two scouts fall to the floor.

"Listen here, roaches," the dark woman rasped. "You and your lord suffer no threat from me. I am not the Duke's and I mean you no harm, but so help me if you do not tell me everything you saw tonight I will gut you like a fish and them feed you to them, understand?" The two men promptly began to tell her all that they saw of the Duke's hundred horsemen storming the at-first unseen cabin and all else that followed before they retreated.

--

"Damn!" the dark woman cursed. "Shit. F---, son of a…"

"Somethin' wrong, o mutilated one?" Grunthor asked as the dark woman tramped back to the woods.

"Effing, maggot-riddled shit heap!" she rasped malevolently.

"Oi'll take that as a 'yes,'" Grunthor mumbled.

"Aaah!" the woman screamed as she set a nearby bush on fire. There was smoke coming from her ears and sparks flying from her fingertips.

"What's wrong? What happened?" Rhapsody asked. The woman cursed colorfully. "Achmed, why is she angry?"

"Angry?" the dark woman said. "No, it is much more than anger. More than fury, more than rage, more than wrath. It is…" her eyes began to blaze, "…mutinous. No, I'm not angry, just really pissed off!" The others exchanged looks. "Damned him!" She clenched her hands so violently that her fingernails cut into her palms.

"When I find him, I'll kill the little b----d," she vowed through gritted teeth.

"Who?" Rhapsody whispered to Achmed. He shook his head.

"Come on, Temporary, Useless…Greenie," the woman rasped. "If you fall behind I am not coming back for you."

"Where are you going?" Rhapsody demanded.

"To Hell," the woman shot back.

--

Grunthor and Rhapsody stumbled after the two dark figures, the Singer making sure Achmed never left her sight. She was beginning to have a very bad feeling about the gruesome woman, who was just as unnerving when she muttered vehemently to herself as when she remained stock still and silent.

They came upon a bend in a forest path, quite some time later, where four men on horseback were laughing and chortling. The unnamed woman walked right up to the clean-shaven man on the bay, seized his tunic, and yanked him out of the saddle. The other three men, as well as the one on the ground and the companions from Serendair, stared after the dark woman in complete bewilderment as she trotted away.

"What…?" the man on the ground trailed off.

"Hey you! Come back here!" another man shouted.

Rhapsody looked frantically from Grunthor to Achmed to the dark woman, and then back again. "Are we supposed to follow on foot?" she asked. "Achmed, no!" she hissed as she pulled back on the Dhracian's robes as he approached a short man on a tall horse.

"Well Oi sure as 'ell ain't gonna be walkin' the 'ole way," Grunthor grunted.

"Grunthor!"

But the big Sergeant-Major ignored the little woman and shoved two more men off their mounts.

"What is the meaning of this?" demanded the squat, black haired man closest to Achmed.

"Sorry, mate," Grunthor told him, "but we're gonna need to borrow yer horses."

"Wh-what? That's p-preposterous!" the man sputtered as Grunthor approached him. He tried to turn his horse around, but the half-bolg seized the reins and knocked the man to the ground.

"After you, Duchess," Grunthor bowed.

"I do not approve," Rhapsody said.

"Oi'm sure. Now up you go." He boosted the petite Lirin into the saddle before getting into his own. All three then rode hastily up the path to catch the dark woman.

--

_It's him. He knows. He'll kill the idiot tinker. We'll lose our chance, AGAIN! _the voice inside the woman's head whispered frantically.

"Shut up!" the woman hissed. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

_We'll never get back. We've lost it. We will be trapped in this living hell forever._

"What's the difference?" the woman growled. "Living, nonliving; it's still Hell."

_Unacceptable! _the voice roared. _You will get the dimwit back and you will get the…_

"Enough!" the woman shouted. "I will take care of it! Now leave me be!"

_I cannot leave you be! Every time I let you be you sabotage me! You are a traitor!_

"NO!" the woman shrieked. "I am not a traitor! Now let me be! Go away, go away! Now!"

The sound of thudding hooves broke through the twisted woman's thoughts. She whirled around in her seat to see the three others come riding up behind her. The small Lirin woman and the giant half-bolg were looking around as if they expected to find another being hidden in the trees. The Dhracian just glared at her with those blazing, mismatched eyes. The woman growled and rode on, keeping the evil little voices at bay.

--

"I know I heard her talking to someone!" Rhapsody whispered.

"Yeah," Grunthor replied, "herself. She's bloody possessed."

"Quiet," Achmed ordered.

_Possessed…_the voice echoed.


	22. The Duke

The Duke

_Possessed…_the voice echoed. _Possessed…crazed… psychotic_

The dark woman shook her head violently, trying in vain to banish the whisperings in her mind.

_Possessed…traitor…murderer…_

She clenched her jaw and set her eyes forward. No memories, no echoes of the past would repeat themselves now…

_Demon…monster…freak…_

The woman leaned forward and put her face next to her horse's neck, letting the wind whip its mane and sting her face.

_Wicked…devil…_

--

Two elaborate, high-backed chairs stood angled toward the crackling flames in the four foot fireplace of a wealthy, burgundy colored study. An old, wrinkled man with large round glasses sat in one, a glass of brandy in his hand. Another, younger and taller man, lean, clean shaven and uniformed, stood next the great mahogany desk, filling his own decanter.

"I really don't see the point in burning my house down," the little old man scolded.

"Necessary precaution, I'm afraid," the young Duke replied with a faint air of superiority.

"Precaution?" said the old tinker. "Against what?" The Duke looked up, forehead wrinkling slightly. "Against the demon woman? I do not see how burning down my home would help you escape her."

"It was not so much your hovel of a house, my dear Phyla, as your laboratory," the Duke said. "Surely you know that."

"Humph," Phyla the old tinker scoffed. "I still do not see the use. If you try to hide, she will find you. If you run, she'll run faster."

"Ah, but you ran from her for a number of years, did you not?"

"I was not running from her!" Phyla interjected. "I was merely relocating, to find the perfect spot for my laboratory, which you senselessly burned down. Now she will track you here and undoubtedly kill you once she finds you."

"True, but I do not plan to be here when she arrives," the Duke responded. "At least, not unprepared."

"Unprepared?" Phyla questioned. "You know as well as I do that the woman cannot die."

"Yet you continue to lie to her?"

"Lie? I have not been lying!"

"No?" the Duke asked, his voice taking on a slightly edgier tone. "Did you not promise her that you could reverse it, return her to a mortal state, once she had performed a few tasks for you?"

"Who told you that?" Phyla asked, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"Who told me or how I know is of no consequence," the Duke waved him off. "The point is the woman cannot die. Yet she can be controlled, can she not?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Phyla insisted.

"Really? Is there not a serum, in a glass vial, that can be used to control her? Bend her to do one's will? Is that not, in fact, how you really got her to do those little errands for you?"

"What are you talking about?" the old tinker demanded.

"Tisk," the Duke scolded, retrieving a slender glass vial of a clear, shining liquid from his jacket and waving it in front of him.

"Where did you get that?" Phyla ordered. "What is going on here?"

The Duke smirked. "I must apologize for the rough treatment of my men," he said. "That bump on the head has clearly slowed your mind."

"What?" Phyla muttered.

"It is time, Phyla. No more messing in the worlds and affairs of others. No more shaping things to your own whimsy. You work for me now. You do as I say and follow my orders, and you will have the best lab, resources, and materials available. You will fix that little black box in your pocket, and return it to me."

"Return it to you?" the old tinker let out a small gasp. "It's you!"

A small smile crept over the Duke's face, and then was quickly replaced by a more demonic, wild look; his pupils rimmed in red, the faint smell of some odious odor wafted past as the half demon straightened to his full height and stared intently into Phyla's eyes.

"I don't know what you're trying to pull," Phyla said in an attempt at defiance, "but your powers have no effect here!"

The Duke took two purposeful strides toward the old tinker.

"Oh, but they do."

Phyla never had the chance to gasp before all went dark.


	23. Whispers

Chapter 23  - Whispers

The dark woman kept her face pressed close to her horse's neck, setting her eyes forward, staring into the narrowing wooded ravine. She, with the Three behind her, rode along the dried up streambed, surrounded by rocky hills covered with pines and firs. The wind howled through the trees, bending and swaying their supple limbs. The woman heard whispers in the boughs.

She snapped her head to the right. She had seen movement; a shifting shadow. From the past? Or a current pursuer? It had become so hard to distinguish between the two. And then there were the whispers…

_Ryyyyy_…

--

Achmed glared into the trees where the ugly woman had so suddenly turned her stiff attention. He had neither seen nor heard anything besides the wind whipping at and through the trees. Perhaps this world had dulled his senses, though the bitter, faint taste of water he could still sense in the air from when this ravine had been the home of a small stream.

The woman turned her head forward again, and Achmed urged his horse slightly faster.

--

Phyla blinked himself slowly back into consciousness. He was lying on his back, staring straight up at a dark, stained maroon canopy of a moth-eaten four-poster bed. He hauled his old body to a sitting position, fighting the terrible pounding in his head. After the room quit its spinning, he took note of where he was.

Lined up in a neat row along the dank, dripping walls were black, cobweb infested sconces with low burning flames. Down a step from where the bed sat were a large wooden table and a floor-to-ceiling cherry cabinet. Along the edge of the bed scurried a black, disease riddled rat.

He was in the dungeon.

Phyla swung his aging legs over the side of the bed and stood up. He cleaned the dirt and the wet off of his glasses and replaced them back on his nose. The room was too dark for any really useful work, as the Duke undoubtedly wanted him to do. He scoffed and padded down to the table and cabinet. Reaching up to the handles of the cherry cupboard, he yanked it open. All he needed was a little static and something relatively sharp, then he'd be gone.

It really was too bad. His hut had been the perfect place for his lab, and the phoenix woman was a great tool. He hated to leave all of that behind. And the Dhracian, Singer, and Bolg Sergeant-Major…pity, he thought. Then again, perhaps he would come back sometime, to fix it all, but most likely not. He lost interest quickly when not constantly reminded.

Phyla stood on his tip-toes and groped about in the cabinet for a needle.

--

Untitled felt a slight stinging sensation in her hand. She glanced down at it; the blood still glistening that bright shade of red from where the glass had cut her. She turned from it in disgust, wrapping the reins around it tighter and tighter, until she felt nothing but the numbing squeeze of the leather.

Then the wind whispered.

_Ryyyyy... _

The woman again glared into the trees. Someone was there, flying from shadow to shadow, taunting her, whispering things from a time long ago.

_Derrrr…_

It was coming from the other direction now, from the recesses in the rocks…

_Ryyy…_

It moved again, whirling about her with the wind.

_Der…_

Now it was behind her…

_Ry…der…_

In her left ear…

_Ry…der…_

In her right…

_Ryder!_

--

She blinked slowly back into consciousness. She was on her back, lying on a bed of needles amongst stunted pine trees. She gasped, the breath she had lost rushing in to fill her lungs once again. The puff of air turned into a little wispy cloud as it met the ever cooling air.

She was staring up at the crowded branches of pine and fir trees growing around and above her on the ground and rising hillside. The dark woman did not know where she was or how she got there. She did not remember veering off the path, passing out, or falling off her horse. She looked about her frantically for her mount, but saw nothing but more trees.

The dark woman hauled herself to her knees. Then the wind whispered through the trees.

_Ryyy….derrrrr……_

The woman snapped her head up.

"Who's there?" she demanded. "What do you want?"

_Death…_

"Go away!" the woman screamed. She could not stand the voices now; the memories.

_You cannot ignore me…_the wind whispered in her ear. _I am the truth…_

"You are lies!" the tortured woman shot back. "Lies!" She gripped the sides of her head as she hung her head, trying to keep out the evil voices.

_Why deny the truth? _it persisted. _You have no one to blame but yourself…_the voice taunted. _You never even tried to save him…_

"I did, though. I tried…' the dark woman whispered.

_You did nothing!_ the voice hissed.

"No! I did! I did!" The woman whimpered as she began to cry.

_You cry because you know it's true. You had the chance to save yourself…_ the voice persisted.

"Please. Please stop," the woman pleaded.

_Your life…_

"Stop. Leave me be…"

_Your love…_

"Why do you torment me?" she yelled, grabbing at her temples. "Go away!" She began rocking back and forth on her knees. "Leave me alone!" There was a brief pause, and then…

_You'll never be alone…_

The woman screamed, her voice echoing shrilly off the walls of the canyon. She fell forward, forehead on the ground, angry tears leaking out the sides of her clenched eyelids. She let out a sob, then pounded her fist on the ground.

"No," she growled through gritted teeth. "I will _not_ give in."

--

Something was wrong. The dark woman's horse had suddenly picked up speed, going from a steady canter to an all-out gallop. Achmed quickly spurred his own horse after her, but she was already far ahead.

The woman disappeared around a corner, but by the time Achmed rounded the same turn, she was gone. He reined in his mount and jumped down. Grunthor and Rhapsody soon followed.

"What's going on?" Rhapsody asked.

Achmed ignored her as he looked around for signs of where the woman had veered off the path. A few feet away he found some displaced rocks and a fresh hoof print. He handed his reins to the Lirin woman and directed Grunthor to do the same and then follow him.

"Stay here," he directed Rhapsody.

"What? Why?" she demanded.

"Just do it," Achmed hissed in a tone that meant no argument.

He stepped into the trees, Grunthor right behind. Where had she gone? What was she trying to pull?

A tree branch snapped. The dark woman's horse stood a little while away, snorting and frothing at the mouth. Achmed pushed on, and there, in a thinning place in the trees, kneeled the dark woman, her hands at her temples, muttering furiously to herself. As he and Grunthor approached her, she clawed frantically at her face, peeling off the mutilated skin in agony. Then, she grabbed a dagger from her boot and aimed it at her temple.

Achmed realized what she was trying to do just in time, and managed to wrestle it away from the mad woman before she could plunge in into the side of her head. Then Grunthor and Achmed grabbed her wrists, tearing her fingers away from her bleeding face. She screamed and fought back, clawing, biting, kicking.

Only through the combined effort of both bolg's strength did they manage to contain the raving dark woman. As Achmed looked into her eyes he saw that she was not there, but someplace else, far away; lost in the maddening recesses of her own mind. He grabbed a hold of her scarred face in his hand and forced her to look at him. In a moment her pupils returned to their normal size, and her eyes regained somewhat of their normal appearance. She continued to breathe heavily and stare at him with an angry and lost expression. After that he and Grunthor got her back to her horse and the path.

No one asked any question, for which Achmed was thankful. He pulled his scarves closer about his sensitive skin as he kept a keen eye on the weary dark woman. He hated it here, he hated that woman…her dark clothes, her dark, bitter nature, her…memories. Especially those memories, that rendered her dumb, transfixed, so that he was forced to play babysitter. As if he hadn't had enough of that already.

Yet, he could not totally condemn her. No, despite his deep desire to, he could not; for he saw in her something of himself, besides the small similarities in dress and nature. He could see a violent need inside of her, an all-consuming passion that she desperately tried to suppress…a longing for something she could never have…


	24. The Speech

Chapter 24 – The Talk

The tortured woman's head hung limp, lolling about with her neck unable to support its weight. She swayed side to side with the rhythm of her horse's stride. Her mind was filled with a sort of numbed blankness, the residue of her latest psychotic break. This last had been more severe than any she'd had in a long time, and the frequency of the attacks had grown as well. _Odd_, she thought in her semiconscious musings, _wonder why._

There was a distant prick and then a twitch in her hand that made her cast her eyes down. The woman watched absently as the first two fingers on her glass-scratched hand flexed and relaxed of their own accord. Her mind was incapable of any analysis, so she went back to staring blindly ahead.

--

The woman's sight remained hazy, the scene before her constantly fading in and out of focus. Shadows of things long dead played in the path before her, appearing before her for a moment before disappearing again into the mist. A murky man with hair tied up in a pony tail strode lazily by on a softly plodding pack horse. A group of gypsies, whose bright and vibrant skirts and scarves, had faded away to dulled hues of milky grays, danced around a flickering ashen fire. Two children ran by, twins, one boy, one girl, chasing one another while the echo of their giggling wafted near the woman's ear. Another child, a lonely little girl with a raggedy blanket, stood abandoned in the road, looking pleadingly right into the woman's eyes. 'Where's daddy?' the innocent little voice asked.

Then she saw him, his ghost, standing there at the side of the road, gray and transparent. She stared at him as she approached, her head twisting floppily behind her as he passed. A desperate whisper escaped her swollen, benumbed lips, like the last plea of a man dying.

"Randi..."

Then this ghost too, faded into the dusk.

--

"What happened?" Rhapsody demanded of Achmed in a hushed angry tone. The Bolg king continued to keep his eyes fixed on the wobbly dark woman ahead, completely ignoring the small Lirin beside him.

"Achmed!"

"Leave it be, Duchess," Grunthor interjected.

Rhapsody's eyes began to burn. "What are you two hiding?" she seethed. "There is something else going on here and you two are deliberating holding me in the dark. I have just as much a right to know…I am a part of this mission also and need to be just as well informed of…"

Achmed shot her a cold, infuriated glare.

"Don't you dare, Achmed Pathfinder," Rhapsody countered. "I have been complacent and ignorant long enough. Tell me what is going on!"

"Nothin' Duchess," Grunthor soothed. "The ol' hag just 'ad a bit of a fall, that's all."

"A fall?" Rhapsody asked incredulously. "Don't lie to me, Grunthor; you know how I feel about them."

"And Oi'm sure you know 'ow Ol' Mighty Mutilated over there feels about whispering about her be'ind 'er back."

"She's wobbling around like a drunkard and about just as coherent," Rhapsody retorted. "Does she even know where we are? Or where we're going? If our guide is ill I should know, so I can help her even if you two will not!"

"You are always so concerned with the well-beings of others," Achmed rasped quietly, "even when they wouldn't give a bloody hrekin about you."

Rhapsody was about to respond, but Achmed continued before she could begin.

"She has demons of her own, Rhapsody; ones just as perilous to her as the F'dor are to us. I doubt she wishes to unveil them to a bunch of other-world creatures she despises but is forced to guide, so for everyone's sake, woman, just shut up. She'll be back to her usual revolting self soon enough…"

Rhapsody looked at Achmed with widened eyes, and before she could reply the bolg lord nudged his mare ahead.

--

Achmed rode alone for a time between the woman in black and his other companions. He was in one of those pensive, brooding moods that could only be satisfied by being alone. Unfortunately that was impossible, as he saw the dark woman begin to slide dangerously far to her right.

He rode up next to the woman and as he was about to push her back upright again he heard her whisper.

"Raan…di…"

Achmed glanced about the ravine, then studied the woman's face as he righted her in her saddle. She made no acknowledgement of his presence.

The dhracian remained at the lead with the dark unnamed woman to keep an eye on her and the path. Grunthor kept Rhapsody a safe distance behind. For some reason he just did not feel it was a god idea to expose the woman's weakness or sickness to the Namer, lest she try to do something to help her, change her, something akin to what the Singer did to Grunthor and Achmed when crossing the fire at the earth's core.

"She's gone, you know…" the dark woman rasped suddenly. "Here with you, and yet not…"

At first Achmed thought she was having another fit of madness, but then realized she was actually talking to him.

"Yes, gone….gone with him, and not you. You, she ditched and left behind, for that…" her head rolled to one side, "fluffed-up dragon man." She made an effort to pull herself up straight, but soon sank back down into a woozy slouch.

"Self-important fop," she repeated. "Now you must content yourself with being on the opposite side of a figurative coin." She paused as she leaned the other way. "You got the raw deal, if you ask me. Saved her life, you did. Now all you've got is the Earth Child…and Grunthor." She sighed. "Least you can still…see her…hear her…touch her, even. But not me, no. Mine…mine is completely, utterly, in all sense of the word…gone. Forever lost to me. Only ghosts now haunt me, floating in and out of sight so that I can no longer tell the difference between them and dusk's shadows."

Achmed stared at the hacked-up woman now uttering these strange, cryptic sentences. She had to be, beyond a doubt, totally mad.

"Crazy?" the woman rasped, talking to herself now just as much as Achmed. "In a way, I suppose. Possessed by…something…at times. Though I am more hollow…an empty…shell…most of the time…except for the constant…hate and rage. That fades occasionally, too, though." She groaned faintly. "Cursed with constant, unending pain, with no hope for reprieve…cursed to just…be…and be in pain. You are too…in your own…dhracian way…"

The dark woman fell silent for a moment as Achmed began to process exactly what it was he had heard.

"Don't worry, Snake Man," she rasped distantly. "The dark, angry, and mutilating one will be back in time to show you to the Duke's…where you will get to dance with your own demons…how exciting…"


	25. The Past

The Past

The woman sank back into her comatose state, still swaying slightly with her mount's long relaxed stride. Achmed then let his ears and eyes open, to take in everything about their path so as to memorize it in case they would need to come back this way, and the unusual scarred woman unable to guide them. He was no longer in his world and his unique abilities were somewhat obscured, true, but he still retained a piece of his innate ability to find and follow a path. When it became dark, however, Rhapsody insisted that they stop and at least rest their horses. Achmed reluctantly agreed, though more because he wanted to make sure the dark woman regained her facilities, and as quickly as possible.

The three made camp off the side of the dry-creek bed in a somewhat clear space between several tall pine trees. The horses were tethered on long lines to the nearest branches. Rhapsody and Grunthor set about making a small fire while Achmed propped the black clad women up against the tree directly across from him, not five feet away. If she said anything more, he wanted to hear. Her semi-lucid speeches offered intriguing insights. As the little fire crackled and popped, Achmed began to mull over the woman's latest ramble. His mouth turned into a thin line as he placed his fingertips to his lips in his posture of deep thought.

Rhapsody knew better than to interrupt the Dhracian when he took to pondering in that intense state of mind of his. Instead of trying to ask him what the whisper she heard the dark woman utter meant, she left it alone and tried, rather unsuccessfully, to sleep. Her mind kept drifting to the secrets she knew Achmed was keeping from her, the odd behavior of the dark woman, the methodic whispers that were just under Rhapsody's ability to hear…what in the name of her beloved star was going on?

Achmed did not feel the need to sleep. He continued to watch the dark woman intently, slumped against the rough shadowed bark, her head twisted limply to the side, resting on her shoulder. Her eyes were closed and the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed was hardly noticeable, if at all. She looked for all appearances to be dead.

--------------------------------------

She was riding her great black stallion across the vast plains of tall, weedy grass. It was the beginning of fall; still warm, but not hot or humid. She gazed contentedly out across the land, taking pleasure in the calm simplicity of the plains. As the sun rose and made its way through the sky she saw the tiny dots on the horizon symbolizing the huts of a small town. The metal band twisted into the shape of a snake around her upper left arm warmed in the sun's rays, and her earrings glinted merrily.

The sound of hoof beats approached from behind. She turned to greet the lithe, brown haired man on the draft/paint mix riding up to meet her.

"Hey, Mort. How're the saddle sores?" she asked with a wry smile.

"Fine," the man replied. "Yours?"

"Shove it up your arse…" the woman chided sarcastically.

---

She twisted the knife further into his wretched body. "This time I want to watch the light leave your eyes…" she hissed. And as the greasy, formerly sneering grey man began to sink to his knees, she whispered, "Say hello to the devil for me!"

---

Her head hanging dangerously close to the rim of her glass, she ordered another shot of tequila.

"I think you've probably 'ad enough, woman," the barkeep said.

She slammed her fist on the bar and snapped her head up. "Don't tell me when I've had enough! I'll know when I've had enough; now give me the damned drink!"

The barkeeper reluctantly conceded and handed her the new glass. Once he turned his back and moved away, another rather drunk man sat down next to her.

"Hi, there, lady…"

---

She woke up in a haze; the blurry image of a cheap top-floor room of one of the shady district's inns lazily came into view. The onerous sound of a drunken man's snoring thundered in her ears. She cursed the filthy wretch as she dragged herself out of the shabby little straw bed and hauled her breeches and boots back on.

"Only one way to avoid hangovers…" she mumbled to herself as she left the room, "…stay drunk."

---

The woman teetered dangerously down an all-but deserted dirt path on the outskirts of the city. The world before her had been swirling and drifting in and out of focus for so long now it had become almost second nature, but this night she had drunk even deeper than usual.

"Where's th' damned inn?" she cursed under her breath.

She stopped. An old gray farmhouse stood alone in a small field. It looked as though it hadn't been used in years…the roof was sagging slightly, and a few windows were boarded up…but something about it struck the woman as familiar.

Then she burped, swooned, and passed out in the dirt.

Something jolted her awake some time later. She blinked rapidly, trying to let her eyes adjust to the sudden intense light. There was a large shadow looming over her prone figure; the silhouette of a big man on a big horse.

"Shit," she grumbled as she tried to fight through her mind-splitting headache and stand, or at the very least sit upright.

"I thought you cleaned up these streets, Randi!" scolded the old, dry, and screechy voice of an old, vulture like woman.

She, though extremely hung-over, recognized the voice at once and involuntarily stiffened.

"I cannot believe you let something like this happen!" the old woman continued to shriek. "What do you think it looks like when a wretched drunk vagrant woman passes out right in front of the Captain's own home? This is a disgrace!"

"Yes, Mother. It will never happen again," replied a deep, back-woodsy male voice.

She finally gained enough stability to stand steadily in front of the man on the horse, and through matted hair and gritted teeth she mumbled, "You may have grown a few feet up and out, and your voice may have dropped an octave, but you're still a momma's boy."

The shadow's head snapped back to attention, and if she'd been able to see his eyes she'd bet that they were staring directly at her, studying her intently, slow recognition, yet disbelief beginning to dawn on him. She ignored him, however, and stumbled painfully back down the road towards town.

---

He was working on the roof of the barn, fixing a leak over one of the as-yet still empty stalls. He worked shirtless, the sun glinting off the smooth, tan, and sweaty skin over the rolling muscles in his back.

"Damn," she muttered to herself. "I wish the last few years had been as good to me as they were to you…"

When he climbed back down from the roof she handed him a rag to wipe the sweat from his brow.

"How long has it been, Randi?" she asked. "Two, three years?"

"Five," he replied.

"FIVE?" she shrieked. "Fu…! Are you serious! Five! Where was I? I do NOT remember it being FIVE years!"

The man named Randi said nothing for a moment, and then very quietly and gently said, "Ryder, I think you have a problem…"

---

"This is your fault!" she screamed in pain. "I blame you! You did this!" She paused to let out an agonizing groan and grimace. "I hope you're satisfied with just the one, Randi, 'cause you ain't getting any more than that!"

---

She was searching frantically underneath the bed. "Where is it?" she muttered ferociously to herself. "I know I put in under here somewhere!" She groped around for a few more minutes, and then let out a small yell of triumph. "Yes!" She unwrapped a small silver flask from a rolled up piece of cloth. She was about to take a swig when the presence of a short little curly-haired person caught her attention.

"Daddy says you aren't supposed to drink," the two year old girl said.

"Well we just won't tell Daddy, then, now will we?" she responded. "It'll be our little secret!" The little girl just looked at her, and then turned around and ran out of the room.

"Daddy!" she cried.

"Don't listen to her, Randi!" she yelled. "She's lying!"

---

The children were bickering again. Her little girl was always fighting with the neighbor boy.

"My mommy says your mommy's crazy," the neighbor boy said.

"Yeah, well my mommy says your mommy's a doormat!"

"Enough!" she yelled, picking the girl up. As she made her way back to the house, however, she tried to banish the echo of the little boy's words from her mind.

_Crazy…_

-------------------------------------------------------------

Achmed had been vigilantly on guard for hours, and still the mad woman remained unconscious. At one point he had seriously considered the possibility of her death, but at that moment her hand with the glass cuts twitched and his brief fear was dashed.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

She was walking through the crowded streets of town, a baby on hanging from a cradle off each shoulder, and a toddling little girl trailing behind her. She was headed for the leather smith's, but while making her way down one particularly busy road she suddenly found herself face to face with a familiar face.

She met the man's gaze squarely. He was a weasely sort of man, though admittedly a bit bigger than his brother. He glared at her with a disgustingly smug little smirk.

"Found you," he smiled.

---

She'd avoided retribution for years for the murder of Colonel Morrison, and it aggravated her beyond belief that they should find her now. Now, when she'd finally found something close to happiness, when she'd finally forgiven and forgotten herself.

"We have to leave," she told him. "Now."

---

She was sleeping peacefully; when all at once something jolted her awake. Her husband beside her was already sitting up in bed.

"What was that?" she demanded. She got out of bed and rushed to the window, where she saw a mob of burly, ghastly men carrying torches. They rushed at the house, throwing the torches at the walls and over the roof. One, thinner, paler, and more neatly kept man on a horse looked up straight into the window and caught her eye.

She turned from the window. She grabbed a pair of breeches and headed out the door.

"Ryder!" her husband called after her.

"Take care of the kids," she replied. "If you have to flee go out the back, through the barn tunnel. His fight is with me, I'll handle it." And she left.

---

There was fire all around her as she ran. They ambushed her among the flames, and try as she might she couldn't fight them off. They dragged her away through the melting snow; the red and yellow fury of the sky's fire dancing menacingly against the stark cold white earth.

---

They hit him again and again. She tried to jump up to protect him, but the skinny bastard cracked his whip and split open her face. She fell to the ground bleeding and partially blind. He pleaded with the ghastly man, who only whipped him as well.

She tried desperately to talk, plead, bargain…anything…but the bastard had only one thing on his mind.

She heard no words, just saw the knife in the murderer's bony fingers, and with one neat stroke he slit the other man's throat.

"No!" she screeched, crawling frantically over to her lover's sinking body. She held him in her arms, blood spilling everywhere, running down her arms, in her face; drowning her.

"Please..." she pleaded, for the first and last time in her life. "Please, no…I love you!" But he was slipping away, his life's blood pouring out, mixing in with her own, and she watched as the light faded from his eyes and he gasped no more. And then she sank into the deep pit of despair, lost in darkness.

---

She was strapped down to a wooden table; with an old gray man bending over her. She was an inch from death, she could feel it, and in that moment wanted nothing else, but the old man had a needle poised in his right hand. As he plunged its tip into her abdomen a incredible pain tore through her body; a searing hot bolt ripped through her muscles, burned her flesh and organs, and she screamed so that the gods above could hear her.

-----------------------------------------------------------

The woman twitched, snapping Achmed out of his reverie. He fixed his gaze on the dark woman, whose hand was beginning to clench and unclench furiously. The dhracian raised himself to a position ready to move.

The rest of her body then began to shake, as if she were having a seizure. Her head thrashed back and forth violently as the rest of limbs flew out as if trying to detach themselves from the rest of her body. She hit and scratched herself, and just as Achmed tried to calm her unconscious person down, Rhapsody and Grunthor began to wake up, and the woman screamed. It was a blood-curdling, agonizing wail that caused the horses to break their ties and stampede shrieking away.

And then she stopped, limp once again. There was more blood on the woman's hand. Achmed took a step toward the dark woman, and froze whenher head all at once turned towards him.

Her eyes flew open.


	26. The Castle Dungeons

Chapter 26 – The Castle Dungeons

They stared at Achmed; two demonic pinpricks of light glowing in the vast darkness. Such heat radiated from them that they burned into him, penetrating, looking into his very soul. Those two searing eyes could see into and through him, but at the same time they ignored him. They had their own hurt, hate; their own schemes for vengeance. They held anger. They held torture. They held murder.

--

She stood among a smoldering pile of ash, the very fires of hell blazing in her eyes. Her skin was raw and scarred and peeling, as though she had been burned at the stake and lived. Hate along with fire coursed through her veins. She was hell's fury in the flesh; rage incarnate, and there was but one thing for her to do…kill.

The darkness of the past melted away into the night of the present. The man veiled in black crouched across from her. She remembered. She knew.

The dark woman stood, only the elevating of her eyes and the rustle of clothes betrayed her actions. Achmed quickly followed suit.

"What's going on?" Rhapsody whispered. "Is everything all right? What screamed?"

No one answered. Instead, the woman of scars turned away and disappeared into the trees. The others hurried to keep up, straining their senses so as not to lose track of the creature leading them.

For creature the dark woman had become; crawling from shadow to shadow with slippery swiftness. Her eyes glowed yellow and red as they blazed forward. And she muttered…chittered like the clicking of a spider's fangs.

"He lied, he must die," the sandpaper grated. "Die, die, bye-bye."

Achmed followed as closely as he dared to the dark woman. She had gone from beyond strange to something so twistedly messed up it was beyond words. She was a devil from the Void; something to be kept locked up and hidden away, never allowed to run around above ground.

They ran for hours, through the ravine and up out of it into a pine forest, yet the sky did not much lighten. Thunder soon rumbled in the distance, a sky-blackening storm was coming, and it seemed to Achmed that the dark woman sparked.

--

As the darkness of night gave way to the gloomy glow of a thunderstorm dawn, the woman with the mangled face stopped. She stood at the edge of the forest for a moment, eyes fixed upon some distant point. Then she stepped out of the trees onto the open field of a hilltop. Achmed, Rhapsody and Grunthor gathered around her, gazing out across to the second hill whereupon the dark woman's eyes were locked. Standing imperially atop it was a massive gothic-style stone castle. In the lower level windows a faint glowing light flickered.

"He's there…" the mutilated woman growled.

She stared a moment longer, than made to take a step forward, but before she could Achmed seized her arm and pulled her back.

"Who?" he demanded. "Who is there? The F'dor, or your old man that you are so adamantly obsessed with?"

The woman glared into the dhracian's mismatched eyes, irises burning, and rasped simply, "Both."

The dark, untitled woman led them over the first hill, running low and swift among the tall grass, sending small waves throughout the little field like ripples in a pond. She stopped the small band again in the crevice between the two rises. The castle loomed over them menacingly. Achmed sniffed the air, and swore he could detect the hint of burning flesh. Then again, perhaps it was just the other woman of fire.

"The demon is inside…" the dark woman whispered.

Then she took off running, with the three Sindarians following the stranger up the dark side of the hill, where there were no fires spreading light from the windows. Lightning struck in the distance as a deafening crack rent the sky.

Once the travelers reached the base of the palace of the Duke, the woman halted.

"Stone," she growled. She strode a few feet further along the wall to where a patch of ivy had begun to creep up the face of the stones. "Shrivel up and die, little green parasite," the dark woman whispered, sending out a cloud of fire at the climbing plant. The ivy slowly peeled away, falling to the ground in little black, burnt cinders. Once all the ivy had singed off, a small wooden door was revealed in the side of the wall.

The woman took a step back, raised her leg, and thrust a flaming foot through the rotten door. Once the burning pieces fell away, the woman stepped through into the pitch black darkness of the castle's cellar.

Achmed's skin burned and prickled.

--

The dhracian struggled desperately to keep up with the dark woman, but the dungeons they were in were not unlike a fun-house maze. Blindly turning corners every second, the evil being drew ever further ahead as the faint scent of burning flesh wafted under his nostrils. And then all at once she was gone. Achmed froze. He whipped all around, searching, smelling….but somehow, some way he'd lost her. He cursed this foreign land and air for weakening his innate abilities, the ones he'd come to rely so heavily upon. Achmed was beginning to feel the closet thing to panic he'd ever experienced.

--

The woman had forgotten completely about them. Those three beings that had been following her for weeks now…those weeks that now seemed only like dreams; horrible hallucinations. She'd put aside any thought about them as she stepped around a corner and slipped through a hidden door.

She was a beast now; a monster on the prowl, possessed by hate and torture, revenge and death. She existed to kill; she was Death's living hand, and all she cared about at that moment was finding the little old man who had turned her thus.

--

The F'dor Duke strode calmly down the steps to the old tinker's prison. He opened the door and stepped in. "Our guest of honor has arrived, Phyla," the Duke said oily. "Let us take our places."


	27. The Torture

Chapter 27

She sniffed him out, rat that he was. When she found him, he was just stepping out of a room into the passageway, lit only by one or two flickering torches hanging from the walls. A flame leapt to life inside her.

"Always running," she whispered, still hidden in the shadows. The little man, now older and more worn than before, turned 'round. "Always hiding." She took a step forward; the man's eye's widened. "But you've avoided your date with Death one time too many." With another step she emerged into the dim, eerie firelight. A look of terror stretched the old man's face even thinner. "And now," the hellish woman rasped, "Death has come looking for you."

The old man turned and ran.

--

Achmed wheeled around, filled with a furious sort of panic. Where had she gone? Which direction?

"Achmed?"

Damn it all anyway.

"Achmed?"

He cursed the hideous, heinous woman and the whole damn twisted thing.

"Achmed!" Rhapsody whispered in the dark. "What's going on? Why have we stopped?"

Achmed was silent.

"She's done it again, 'asn't she?" Grunthor grunted. "Disappeared?"

"Bloody hrekin!" Achmed hissed.

--

He had dropped something. The woman calmly stepped up to the small, dark object lying on the floor, picked it up, and put it in her pocket. Then, she followed him.

She had him cornered now; no more running. A demented sort of excitement welled up inside her. Her eyes blazed, sparks shot from her fingertips. Ages of chasing and searching, suffering, torture, and deception, and it all was going to end now. Here, in this dank rock pit. She began to tremble slightly with the anticipation.

The old man's frantic footsteps echoed off the stone walls. She could hear his breath wheezing with the effort and the panic. How he had aged since last she saw him! It made her demonically giddy.

--

"What?!" Rhapsody demanded. "Achmed!" She bumped into the bolg lord in the dark. "She's gone? How? Where?"

"If I knew, we wouldn't still be standing here," Achmed's sandpapery voice grated angrily.

He tried closing his eyes, picturing the dungeon maze pathways in his mind. Edges were blurry, everything was dark, nothing seemed to stay in focus long enough to really see it. He started feeling with hands along the wall.

"Run your hands along the other wall," he ordered. "Look for another corridor, or a trigger for a trap door, anything."

--

She was drawing closer now, so very close; so close she could taste it. The anxious excitement blazed through her veins. Centuries of waiting, coming to a close; she could hardly stand it. And then, his footsteps stopped. A thought sparked in her mind.

_Trap!_

--

"Here!" Rhapsody called. "There's something here!"

Achmed raced to where the Lirin was feeling along the corridor wall and immediately followed her small hands. Yes, there was a small, peculiar fissure there, just big enough for one of Achmed's long, slender fingers to dig into. He tugged and a little piece of rock came forward, triggering a piece of the stone wall to slide open. Achmed at once knew this was the passage the dark woman had taken, so he flew forward into the pitch black tunnel, Grunthor and an anxious Rhapsody behind.

--

She was hit from behind, slammed into by several large, hard bodies. She was twisted, flung against the cold stone wall, and shackled there before she even caught a glimpse of her attackers. Rancor came to a boil beneath her skin as she threw herself forward, straining against the iron chains. The room was black. The woman could not see the shape of the room nor the men that had attacked her.

"Aaaaarrr," she growled. When it remained silent she screamed. "Coward!" She fought the restraints for a few moments more before half a dozen torches suddenly came to life around her.

She was in a small room, chained to the wall adjacent to several iron-barred cells. More iron chains hung from several places in the ceiling and walls. Across from her, standing smugly at the other side of the short room, was the Duke Eli of Elmont. Behind him, stood four huge burly men; thugs. But the woman's fiery glare remained fixed upon the rail-thin old man hunched over beside the F'dor possessed Duke.

"Welcome, my – "

"Fuck you."

The Duke closed his mouth. The woman's eyes hadn't moved.

"Your creature has horrible manners, I'm afraid to say," the Duke drawled.

"You are going to die, old man," the dark woman whispered. "And I am going to kill you." The old man trembled slightly.

"Now, now, fire-woman," the demon said with a sneer in his voice.

"Chains will only delay me," she said. "They will not keep me here. It would be easier for everyone if you just let me down now. I'll leave and never bother you again, right after I fry the witch-doctor."

The Duke gave an odd sort of little cluck. "I'm afraid that's not quite what I had in mind."

The woman shifted her gaze for the first time to meet the demon duke's. "Well I don't give a fucking shit what you had in mind, you fucking coward bastard," she replied. "I'm here to kill the old man, and I will. If I have to kill you too, oh well."

Fire erupted from her fingers and began to crawl up her arms as she poised to shoot a flame in the duke's general direction.

The duke tisked. "None of that, now, woman." He motioned toward one of the thugs behind him, who stepped forward with a bucket just as the woman flung a fireball at the demon. He ducked smoothly and almost immediately the thug took up the bucket and launched its contents at the dark woman.

It was as if her flesh were on fire; her whole body engrossed in searing pain. She was blinded, except for the pieces of memory that flashed before her. The liquid drenching her was so cold it burned. She was burning in ice. It ate away at clothes and skin. Layer by layer the hellacious ice boiled away her body. Her will, her mind, her body were gone. Death, death, she wished for death and only death, and yet death would not come.

--

Achmed moved at a furious pace down the black corridor; all senses on the alert, ready for the inevitable trap. Traveling swiftly they soon came upon a few lit wall sconces, burning low and meek. The lights disappeared again and the dhracian strained his ears and senses. He sniffed the stale stagnant air and went rigid inside. It was faint, but unmistakably there: the burnt fleshy stench of the F'dor.

They continued more cautiously through the underground maze, Achmed following the whiffs of his ancient enemy's essence. And then there were voices, blurred and unintelligible. Achmed's nerves pricked, muscles taught. Slowly they inched forward in the darkness, creeping up on a brightly lit chamber with numerous chains hanging from the stone walls. A torture rack stood at the far end, the dark scarred woman hung from a set of irons on the wall at the right, and by the left wall were four large thugs with arms as thick as small tree trunks, a bent and withered old man, and a tall, proud, regal man with red rimmed eyes: the F'dor.

The dhracian tensed and stared at the demon, Grunthor and Rhapsody knowing from his manners what he saw. They watched for a moment in the silence and safety of the shadows, attempting to listen in on the conversation.

"Fuck you!" the mangled woman growled.

Achmed wondered what the effects of the woman's fire-wielding abilities could have on the F'dor, and vise versa. Planning; assessing the situation and possibilities.

One of the thug men stepped forward with a bucket of what appeared to be water. He threw it at the unnamed woman and a bone-shattering scream pierced the emptiness of the dungeons; the very air trembled with the pain.

The woman's eyes glazed over even as her screech echoed and her body twitched violently. The liquid Achmed had thought to be water began sizzling on the woman's skin; eating through cloth and flesh. It ate away at her like acid, leaving her skin red, raw and grotesque. Drops of her melted skin fell to the ground in a small puddle, and she was left looking like a half living corpse leftover from its burning at the stake. The woman was still for a moment, and then gave another violent twitch; proof that she was not quite dead. Rhapsody let out a silent and terrified gasp.

"I believe that should do it, should it not, my friend?" the demon F'dor asked of the trembling little old man, who did not respond. The demon took a step toward the body on the wall. "You are now at my command," he informed it. He took another step. "I am your master and you will do as I say." One more step and he was directly in front of the miserable creature. "Kill the Three you brought here with you," he whispered. The woman's head shot up, her eyes bulging and teeth involuntarily bared.

"Rot in living hell you loathsome canker - sore," she wheezed. "I will die before I obey anyone's orders other than my own."

"Hm," the F'dor mused.

All at once the woman's hand shot out to grab the demon around the neck but at the very last moment it froze in midair; hovering a hair's breadth away from clenching round his throat and crushing his windpipe. The woman was furious, and straining against her hand's unwillingness to do as she told it.

"As I said," the F'dor went on, "you will kill the Dhracian and his two companions. After that you shall return to me and we will travel on back to my homeland where you will aide me in my…ambitions."

The woman paid no heed to his words, only glared holes into him and her hand as she continued her struggle. It was beginning to shake, and her whole body to shiver. Achmed could see the straining muscles through patches of her burnt away flesh as more and more of it began to fall away.

"Impressive," the Duke demon admitted. "However, if you continue to fight the commands you will lose more and more of yourself."

"Too late for that," the woman hissed back. "I've no self left to lose."

Duke Eli turned to the quaking old man. "Perhaps we need more?" he asked. "Or perhaps she'd give in under a little more pain?" He nodded to another one of his henchmen as he stepped back and his minion raised a nasty looking sword. The hefty man brought the blade down swiftly and severed the hand from its wrist.

The woman choked back her cry as the rest of her arm went limp. Then another man came forward with a second bucket of toxic liquid and drenched her again. She let out a howl just as the F'dor suddenly turned and looked stared in the Three's direction.

"Go!" Achmed hissed.


	28. The Pit

**Chapter 28 – The Pit**

It infuriated the Dhracian; the lack of any plans, the ruination of his guide and link back to his own world. But most of all it infuriated him to be running away from his ancient enemy. He should have called upon the four winds and ensnared the demon spirit while it was distracted, except for the fact that he held no real sway over the winds here in this world. If he'd been able to spout fire, he would have.

Plan, plan, he needed a plan. He needed the woman. No, he needed the time traveler; the woman was useless to him now.

"Give me back my fucking hand!" what was left of the woman's voice shrieked through the dungeon corridors. Achmed paid it no notice.

Who else knew how to work the time traveler? Who else would be in possession of it? That crippled old man knew how to use it…he made it. Get the old man, grab the F'dor, yank him back to where they all belonged…and then dispatch it then and there while it was still disoriented from the journey through space and time. That was the plan, the objective. Now all he had to do was figure out how to get to that damned old man.

--

The demon possessed Duke glared into the dark dungeon passageways. The F'dor in him had experienced a brief moment of panic when it thought it had sensed the Dhracian nearby, and he left so exposed. He soon calmed down, however, since the Dhracian could not call upon the four winds to ensnare his spirit. Then again, he could not switch bodies so easily here, either. He believed now, though, that the Three must be inside the castle itself. It was time to dispatch them.

"Give me back my fucking hand!" the living dead woman gurgled as she continued to spasm on the wall.

The Duke glanced at the decomposing body on the wall in loathing. "Unchain it," he ordered.

Two thugs tentatively went over to the writhing being and unlocked the chains, letting her fall in a mangled heap to the floor. Once she had stopped the worst of the twitching the Duke stood over her and sneered. "Go find the Sindarians, and kill them. Now." With that he turned on his heel and left the torture chamber, his minions and the worn out old man following behind. As Phyla passed the woman laying on the ground her arm shot out and reached for his ankle.

"Not that one!" the Duke chastised her, and her fingers curled back into a fist, a look of wild, insane rage flashing in her eyes.

The woman was no longer inside herself. It was more as if she were a passive observer, situated behind her body's eyes, hidden within her mind. Her capacity to think had also been compromised. Though it was somewhat of a relief to have a reprieve from her normally chaotic mind, she was still conscious enough to recognize herself as being an automaton, and that infuriated what was left of her psychotic self. Not only that, but now she had yet another voice inside her head giving her orders and manipulating her shell of a body. The awareness of the schizophrenia was apt to make her lose her mind, if she still had one. Her brain was a jumbled mess of emotion, laced with the constant stream of anger. Then there was that voice again; the demon duke's: Kill the Sindarians. Go kill them NOW.

She felt her body, still slightly convulsion, rise of its own free will. And then she watched herself walk, stumble back down the dark corridor.

--

Achmed used every skill he possessed to navigate his way back through the labyrinth of the dungeons. He knew the F'dor knew he was there. Now it was a battle between the two old world enemies; who could get to the other first.

Achmed sensed that somewhere a little while back he had taken a wrong turn and were no longer headed back out of the castle, but instead were moving further in. The Three soon came upon a staircase leading upwards, and at the top a faint red glow flickered ominously. Achmed halted them.

"We need to find that old man," he rasped. "He has the time traveler and knows how to use it."

"What are we going to do about the F'dor?" Rhapsody asked.

"We could just leave it 'ere ter rot," Grunthor suggested. Achmed's skin twitched. "O course, that'd mean you'd 'afta let it live. Stupid suggestion. Never mind."

After a moment of silence, Achmed whispered, "We're taking it back with us."

"What?!"

"Keep your voice down!" Achmed hissed. "I can't call upon the winds here. My abilities don't work as well here."

"Would that not mean then that neither do the F'dor's?" Rhapsody asked.

Achmed paused. "It's possessed one of these beings. Apparently it still has some power, and personally I am not willing to take a chance that it could escape. The best chance we have is to drag it back through Time with us, back to the world we all belong to. And then after we get back and it's still dazed we can kill it there."

"We will be weak ourselves, Achmed, are you sure you'll have the strength to trap it before it can escape?" Rhapsody questioned.

"It's our best and only option," Achmed replied harshly. That thought had occurred to him, and he preferred not to think about it. Somehow, someway, he would find the strength.

Achmed led them then up the dark stairway. At the top was a large square room with a dark flickering red light playing upon the walls. For the life of him he couldn't see where the light was coming from. Other than the strange light the room was empty. Excepting the extremely large circular pit situated in the middle of the floor. No foul odor rose from its depths, no curious noises emanated from the darkness. It just sat there quietly, patiently, waiting. How far down it went it was hard to say, since the weird red light did not penetrate much farther than a foot into it.

Achmed paced around the far side of the pit, thinking, planning, while Grunthor inspected the dark corners of the room for anything else of significance. And Rhapsody was silent for once. Except….not completely. Achmed's head snapped up upon hearing the stifled gasp escape the little Lirin woman.

The dark, dead woman had found them. She had seized Rhapsody around the neck, the petite Singer's feet dangling, struggling frantically a foot from the ground. Achmed and Grunthor immediately started toward the nameless evil woman, but as they did flames leapt to life within the pit. They spilled out over the edges and created a fiery wall between the two and their companion. Achmed's blood boiled, and he made to cross through the fire anyway.

The sight of figures within the flames however stopped him. There were shadows; shadows of flames in the fire. Grotesque sort of figures; grotesque and pitiful, they seemed to be trying to escape from their fiery prison, or bring those on the outside into the fire with them. Their flickering arms and hands reached out for Achmed; their sunken eyeless sockets pleading.

"Bloody hrekin!" he hissed through his teeth.

--

She lurched through the dank, foul dungeon passageways. In her occasional brief moments of lucidity she would try to tear her legs in another direction. Her legs being barely under her own control, however, this only resulted in her collapsing to the floor or colliding into a wall. And every time she defied the voice in her head that wasn't hers, the one controlling her body, searing pain would course through her spine. Flashes of all the horrendous things she had seen and done in her life swam in front of her, and a little piece of flesh around her burns would simmer a little further away.

Oh, how easy it would be to stop fighting; just to give in and let the body do what it would; let her mind cease to think and just drift away into nothingness. This was the closest to death she'd ever be able to get. She had died completely once, died literally, but this wasn't quite the same. It was as close as she would ever get, however, and she began more and more to give into the autonomy.

On the other hand, the dark, untitled woman had never been one to just give up. It wasn't in her not to fight. She always fought. The rage and fury would never let her give up or call a truce. Therefore just as her body began to choke the life out of a little Lirin woman, she snapped back into some of her own senses. She could see now. In the hand she still had left she held the little Singer, Rhapsody, by the throat, and was holding her a foot off the ground. The Lirin squirmed and choked, and although the dark woman held no real compassion or caring at all for the little blonde woman, this was what that bastard demon had ordered, and she would not so easily become his marionette.

She let go.

--

Rhapsody fell to the ground in a gasping heap; a ring of raw, burned skin around her neck. The flames from the pit fell back to let Achmed and Grunthor pass. They rushed forward and seized the woman and pulled her back.

Upon seeing Achmed an unexplainable ire rankled within the devil woman. She lurched forward without conscious knowledge of it and made a grab for the Dhracian. He stepped back as Grunthor dragged Rhapsody to the side of the room, making sure she was okay before heading back to Achmed's side.

The woman locked glares with the bolg lord, and suddenly somehow saw the little old man; the one who had turned her into this monster. She would kill him.

She sent out a ball of fire straight at Achmed's chest. He had been anticipating this, however, and was able to duck and roll away. Grunthor made to aide him, but in a much swifter move than would have seemed possible for that living corpse, she grabbed a hold of his leather jerkin and flung him against the stone wall. Grunthor hit his head before crumpling into a large green and brown pile on the floor.

She was a demon from hell itself, going after Achmed. The fire within the pit roared and its flickering specters screamed and writhed at her approach. Achmed shouldered his cwellan, despite the fact that the first time he had used it on this thing it had had just about no effect whatsoever. She came at him, he fired a shot. The three discs whisked out and slashed her throat. She gurgled slightly but did miss a step. The disks should have severed an artery, but it seemed that the woman didn't have much blood left to bleed. It became apparent to him that his only real plausible option would be to flee instead of fight. The dark woman, however, was not about ready to let that happen.

--

He was standing right there before her, helpless. Hers at last. She did not register the pain or the struggle that ensued. All she knew was that she now had him, dangling from his fingertips above the lip of the pit…fiery shadows licking hungrily at his feet. She made to pry his fingers from their already loosening grip, but then something within the flames caught her attention. There were figures crying out from within the orange and red hell.. And she saw them; all of them.

--

The woman had forced him over the edge of the pit. Exactly how, Achmed couldn't really say, but he was loosing his grip and she was about to help him in the process when she stopped suddenly. Her eyes stared blankly into the fire below him. And then she spun away and began convulsing horrifically; screaming, crying, burning alive. If there had been anything left of her skin it burned away now, and then the unseen acid began to eat away at the exposed, spasming muscles.

"Achmed!" Rhapsody croaked from the other side of the room.

Achmed tried not to loose his calm as he dug his fingers further into the crevice in the stone. "A little help!" he called.

Then he heard a grotesque, spine-shivering gasping, followed by the distinct sound of a body being dragged, inch toward his strained fingers. And then the living dead woman appeared over the rim of the pit, gasping, burning still from the invisible fire consuming her body. She reached out her hand.

"Take it," she rattled.

Achmed was dumbfounded. Like hell he would.

"Take it, dammit!" she choked. "Quick, before I can't control it."

Achmed lurched and grabbed a hold of the demon woman's muscle and bone hand, perhaps against his better judgment. The woman's face contorted into yet another hideous expression as she made to haul the Dhracian back out of the pit she had just thrown him into.

Rhapsody had managed to hobble over, and Grunthor was coming to as well.

"Why are you doing this?" Rhapsody managed to squeak.

"Not…for my own health…I…assure you," the dead woman rasped as Achmed scrambled out of the fire pit. He let go as soon as possible and the woman went into another round of twitching.

"I guess this just goes to show that you never can trust anyone to do anything for you," came the harsh, pompous sneer of the F'dor possessed Duke of Eli.

"Aw, hrekin!" Grunthor muttered.


	29. The Return

Chapter 29 – The Return

Achmed's senses rankled. The scent of the F'dor was no where near its normal potency, like it would have been back in his own world, but it was enough to rouse the deep-seated despise of his kind within him. His mind started frantically searching for a plan, a course of action. How could he get a hold of the demon and the time traveler at the same time…and then figure out how to work the damned device on top of that? His fingers twitched and his skin itched. The fire-pitted room was stifling and the cloths around his face and neck were not helping. And the F'dor was right there….and there was nothing he could do!

The Duke stood there for a moment, eyes glinting maliciously and a smirk tugging at the edge of his lips. While the two stood there, glaring at one another, six of the Duke's thuggish minions filed into the room, with the bent old man limping in behind them.

"Well, then," said the Duke, "I think the Dhracian should go first." The thugs began closing in on the Three companions, who took out their weapons and stood their ground, despite one having just suffered a massive concussion, another nearly being strangled to death, and the third dangling above a bottomless pit of fire.

Achmed started going through the plan in his head as the burly men came toward them. First, they would dispatch the Duke's brutes, and then they would somehow hold the demon down and grab the old man and his time traveler. But…what was in the decrepit little old man's hand and what was he doing with it?

"Hold on…there...Duchy," rasped the dead, grating voice of the wraithlike unnamed woman. She staggered determinedly by Achmed and Rhapsody, to stand between them and the Duke and his minions.

The Duke scowled. "You really have turned out to be much more trouble than you are worth," he growled. "I am disappointed," he said, turning to the graying old man next to him, who ducked his head and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Get out of the way," Duke Eli told the undead woman. She slammed herself up against a wall. "Please do try to kill the Sindarians, boys, while the Doctor and I try to deal with this unruly creature," he went on. His thugs continued their approach, swords and other weapons drawn as they backed the Three closer and closer to the fiery pit in the center of the room.

The woman stared at the old, cracked stones of the castle's chamber. _Stay there_ said the voice that wasn't hers. _No,_ her own mind growled back. However, her body was more inclined to obey the former rather than the latter.

The demon-possessed Duke was only a few steps away, and the little old man two steps behind him…that wretched, lying, scheming, damned little old man, whose fault all of this was…everything...everything…

--

Achmed cursed. They had to take care of these dumb oafs in front of him quickly, before the F'dor had a chance to escape or the woman had the chance to kill the old man with the time traveler. He fired three discs into the eyes of the duke's servants, and unlike the woman he'd shot oh so long ago in the darkness of his bedroom chamber back in Ylorc, these men dropped dead in their footsteps. The remaining men charged, much to Grunthor's satisfaction.

--

She threw herself at him. It would end. Now. The old man yelped as she landed on top of him, pinning him to the floor with the fingers of her remaining hand wrapped around his throat. She ignored the frantic, insistent orderings of the voice in her head, screaming _let him go, damn you, release him!_ She didn't even feel the arms trying to pull her away. The rough, tearing hands could only further rip apart her disintegrating flesh, as she watched the panic stricken eyes of the old man grow wider, as in one who has realized he is staring his own death in the face.

"You took every dear thing I had from me," the woman whispered like a ghost as she began to crush the man's windpipe. "And then you took away my death, the most precious thing left to me; the only thing left. So now…I am going to take what is most precious to you…" The old man sputtered and choked, and began flailing in his death throws. And then he went still, and the eyes went blank.

--

"No!" screeched the F'dor in the desperate, lost shriek of a demon. Achmed looked up from his recently deceased opponent to see the dark, dead woman taking her hand away from the throat of the still old man. He was dead.

_Bloody hrekin!_ he cursed.

The F'dor was so enraged he was at a loss as to what to do with himself. That damned corpse had killed his alchemist, magician…his most crucial asset! And then he looked over to where the Three had been battling with his own men just as Grunthor chucked the last of them into the fire pit. His plan had not gone quite as he anticipated. He would have to regroup later, right now, he would have to run.

Achmed would not let the demon escape, not when they were so close. He saw the duke begin to sprint for the doorway, and gave chase. The F'dor, in his panic, had forgotten about the living dead woman, who was sprawled out on the floor convulsing again. In a remarkable feat of stupidity, even for the Duke Eli, he tripped over one of her twitching legs and went flying into the floor.

Achmed was on the F'dor in an instant.

"Achmed!" Rhapsody screamed.

Grunthor soon joined the melee of arms and legs, hits and kicks. Rhapsody, in a fit of brilliance and despite the fact that it greatly disturbed her, went over to the body of the dead old man and searched it for the time traveler. There were bits and pieces of old roots, parchment, and, curiously, a little black notebook, but nothing that could pass as the time traveler.

She didn't hear her name being called until the untitled woman screeched, "I've got the damned thing, you dumb-as-fuck Singer!"

Rhapsody spun around and upon seeing the corpse woman hauling her unruly, semi-decomposed body into some semblance of a sitting position, the Namer went over to her. "Here," she croaked, shoving the little black device into Rhapsody's hand. It was circular in nature, of a hard, cold substance, with three sets of numbers etched around its perimeter. Just below each set of numbers was a miniscule dial. A little red light glowed in the center.

"Get…your…others…" the dark woman sputtered. "Then….press…your finger…to…the light…" she made a terrible rattling noise with her next intake of breath and then dragged herself away from the Lirin woman; moving in desperation, trying to escape the pain by movement, by distracting her mind…

"Rhapsody!" Achmed called. He and Grunthor had the Duke contained between the two of them now, and the dhracian was beckoning to the Lirin to come over, and take them back to Ylorc.

Rhapsody cast a glance at the pathetic, decrepit body of the woman without a name. Achmed knew immediately what was going through her mind and cut it off. "No," he rasped definitively.

"Achmed, look at her! We can't just leave her here! She needs help….she's…." the Singer trailed off.

"What? Dying?" Achmed spat back sarcastically. "_Now_, Rhapsody, let's go!"

"She needs our help, Achmed," Rhapsody insisted. "She helped us. She brought us here, lead us to the demon, looked after us…"

"She also 'ad 'er 'and wrapped around yer neck, crushin' yer windpipe about a minute ago, Oi believe," Grunthor interjected.

"She was possessed! It wasn't her fault! She deserves peace, too! She deserves to know who and where she is…"

She was doing it yet again, Achmed thought. Feeling pity, the incomprehensible desire to help the woman find her 'self' again, or whatever it was. The dhracian did not have time for the Namer's obsessions with identity, humanitarianism or philanthropy. And it was quite clear to him that that broken shell of a being was ruined, useless, and beyond any healing whatsoever, no matter what Rhapsody believed.

"She's ruined, Rhapsody!" Achmed hissed. "Hopeless, now let's _go_!"

The Duke F'dor, despite his dismal position, began chuckling. "You want to help _that?_" he scoffed. "Do you know what that is, little Lirin Singer?" he asked, the red rimmed eyes blazing. "That is a murderer, the most perfect kind of killer; the kind that can kill forever without being killed itself."

"Quiet, you!" Rhapsody spat venomously. The demon laughed again.

"Do you honestly not know? Ha! She was a killer even before the old man there turned her into the violent puppet she is now. Did he not tell you what she is? Did she never tell you what she is?" He smiled with malicious glee. Rhapsody met his gaze intently.

"You will desist with your poisonous lies," she said.

"Oh, yes, lies," he smirked. "Too bad she killed the magician, he could have told you the whole story, he was there for most of it. In fact he could explain it much better than anyone else; he's the one who made her, gave her the demented sort of life she has now."

"Oy, you, shut up," Grunthor grunted, knocking the Duke across the head, dazing him.

Achmed and Grunthor than dragged the disoriented Duke with them over to Rhapsody. The dhracian seized the time traveler from the Lirin woman while Grunthor grabbed hold of her other arm. Achmed then pressed his finger to the glowing light in the middle of the stone-like disk, and all at once they were jerked back into nothingness and were flying through the vortex of time and space.


End file.
